The 5th Generation Starting Line: Initial Metagames

I'm sure this has been a subject of much anticipation for many of you, and with good reason. Before I go out and announce what we have decided will be the starting point for our Black and White metagames, allow me to explain the difficulties introduced with this generation, and why it took so long to organize how we wanted to approach things.

With the introduction of new mechanics and variables (such as "Preview Teams" versus "No Preview Teams" and "Released Dream World" versus "Full Dream World"), Pokemon Black and White opened a ridiculous amount of options in terms of possible metagames. Think about it, just using those two variables I listed, each tier could potentially have four metagames. For example, [OU, Singles, Full Dream World, No Preview Teams], [OU, Singles, Full Dream World, Preview Teams], [OU Singles, Released Dream World, No Preview Teams], and [OU, Singles, Released Dream World, Preview Teams] would all be subsets of the OU Singles tier... and that's not including things like Miracle Shooter and other options. Multiply that by however many tiers we want, such as Ubers, UU, LC, UU Doubles, UU Triples, UU Rotation Battle, etc., etc., and you have just way too many options. Although we want to significantly increase the number of playable metagames in this generation, we also do not want to dilute everything to the point where it just causes confusion. Also to be considered was the fact that each metagame might require its own suspect testing system, which we just simply do not have the manpower to handle, and Doug would have that many more stats to run (he does that all by himself, I might add). With practicality in mind, we decided that it would be best to start things out with what's easily controlled, and expand out from there once things start stabilizing. The first step was to figure out which metagame Smogon would support in its official tournaments. Ideally, we wanted the available ladders to at least reflect that. After much debate, the Tournament Directors decided that the officially supported setup for the Black and White metagames will be: released Dream World abilities only, previewable teams. There are a few reasons we decided on this setup:

  1. It most closely resembles WiFi battles, which is a gap we'd like to bridge.
  2. Previewable teams would only be thrown out if we found it to significantly decrease the competitiveness of the game. We feel that it merely changes how the game is played, not lower the competitiveness.
  3. Much like how we don't allow Pokemon that have not been released yet, we do not want to allow abilities that have not been released yet either. For all we know, these abilities might not ever get officially released.
It also was nice that our decision happened to reflect what the majority of the community felt, based on responses to various related topics. Even with an officially supported setup in mind, though, Smogon should still not be limiting the potential metagames, and I know that full Dream World abilities is a very fun and popular metagame right now. In order to accommodate this popularity and also take into consideration practicality, we decided that these would be the initial available ladders on Smogon's soon-to-come official server:

  • Standard Ubers (Released Dream World Only)
  • Full Dream World Ubers
  • Standard OU (Released Dream World Only)
  • Full Dream World OU
  • Standard LC
  • Full Dream World LC
  • VGC 2010
  • VGC 2009
  • 4th Generation Ubers
  • 4th Generation OU
  • 4th Generation UU
  • 4th Generation LC
  • 3rd Generation Ubers
  • 3rd Generation OU
As you can see, we do not plan on supporting non-previewable teams on the ladder initially, but it will be an available option in challenge play. Also, such a ladder might be implemented in the future, based on popular demand in certain tiers only. UU is not listed, because we need data in order to create a UU banlist first. Doubles, Triples, and Rotatioin Battles are not going to initially be available for practicality reasons listed above, but they will come once we are ready to set them up. These will also be available in challenge play, though. I also have something in mind for how to integrate challenge play better, to accommodate these metagames, so be on the lookout for that. Please note that usage stats might not be available for the Full Dream World ladders and past generations, as we want to primarily focus on officially supported new metagames before all else.

With these initial ladders in mind, the next important decision is to have a starting list of clauses and a starting banlist for OU. Fortunately for us, the results of the Sleep Clause, Species Clause, OHKO Clause, and Evasion Clause polls all resulted in an overwhelming (over 66.00%, as declared in the OP of each topic) vote to not need to test them. As such, we can forgo this step in the process. Although I can't say I'm too happy about how the banlist options were created (I think it was a big oversight to not have a rather expansive banlist which still allowed the two most controversial Pokemon, Darkrai and Lugia, to both be tested), I am still going to support the results. As some of you already probably know through your own counting, Banlist #2 is the one that was most popular. Here is the final results tally (special thanks to Chris is me for running this tally):



For those of you who are too lazy to look it up yourself, here is the banlist:

Banlist #2

Arceus
Dialga
Giratina
Giratina-O
Groudon
Ho-Oh
Kyogre
Lugia
Mewtwo
Palkia
Rayquaza
Reshiram
Zekrom
Once the server is set up, this will be the active banlist for both 5th generation OU ladders.

-----

Where to to go from here...

We would like to get our server up and running as fast as possible. That does not mean we'll be ready to start suspect testing, though. Before that, we need to re-evaluate how we determine what is Uber and what isn't. Is our method of classification from the 4th generation what we want to use this generation, or do we want to change things up? Keep your eyes peeled for a topic on that matter in the near future. We also need to determine if we want separate suspect tests for the Full Dream World ladder and the Standard ladder, or if we should just focus our efforts on the standard. After that is settled, I will announce the method with which we will be determining suspects and how users can qualify to vote. You can rest assured that I will not be using any hidden metrics to determine things. If we want to use some sort of SEXP, it will be made public. My ideal plan at the moment would look similar to how the 4th generation's UU suspect process flowed. I will post more on this process later.

Thanks for your patience everybody, and I look forward to getting everything started very soon!
 

locopoke

Banned deucer.
I feel that Full Dream World should not get Suspect Tests. Whatever changes are made to standard should be made to Full Dream World. Full Dream World isn't an official metagame as much as it is a look into the future of what's to come when more Dream World Pokemon are released. Users can play it if they want to but otherwise it doesn't deserve much attention in terms of rules and restrictions, it's just a fun metagame.

Nice job with this.
 

Ditto

/me huggles
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Just a small thing about Chris is me's tally, there are 120 votes counted, so I am not entirely sure exactly how accurate it is. Now through my own counting Banlist 2 still won, but I could have made a mistake and I wouldn't mind an official tally to be 100% sure personally. I know we really want to get the server and ladders, but I just don't want it to actually be wrong and then people bitch and moan later on. Maybe this is me just being too cautious though.
 

cim

happiness is such hard work
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The tally you see there includes the extra vote made by EW at the end. This is not the one that got deleted before EW voted, but a new one with his vote, and as you can see no category ever lose by less than 4 votes so the margin of error is definitely sufficient.

I like how we're making decisions to be "as close to wifi as possible" but we're on the brink of deciding to not play Pokemon anymore (see following the cartridge thread). It just seems contradictory.
 

Bologo

Have fun with birds and bees.
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So I was just wondering, if we're going with banlist #2, but a little while later we feel that maybe Lugia's not going to be so broken in the metagame we have, are we able to drop it down like we did with 4th gen UU, and let it participate OU to see if it can fit in? (same goes for any of the other pokemon on that list although Lugia's clearly the most likely to cause this controversy).
 
So I was just wondering, if we're going with banlist #2, but a little while later we feel that maybe Lugia's not going to be so broken in the metagame we have, are we able to drop it down like we did with 4th gen UU, and let it participate OU to see if it can fit in? (same goes for any of the other pokemon on that list although Lugia's clearly the most likely to cause this controversy).
Though I have not ironed out these details yet, I have thought about this and would like to open the option later down the line to bring down suspects to test.
 

eric the espeon

maybe I just misunderstood
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I am very disappointed not to see doubles or triples suggested as an initial metagames, we have literally nothing to lose by offering these metagames on a ladder. The idea that we somehow dilute our playerbase by offering them very different styles of play is simply absurd, and dealt with by this brilliant post by Doug. We should be promoting at least one metagame for every major style of play, not piling everything into the singles formats. When you see DW tiers which are much closer to the standards, so provide far less variety, and are not even possible ingame given priority over entire major competitively interesting formats it's quite worrying, how many people you discussed this list with have played more than a few of non singles games? Triples (or perhaps doubles) is very likely to become the new VGC format so we really should put significant emphasis on developing general Doubles and Triples skills rather than ignoring the metagames.

Also to be considered was the fact that each metagame might require its own suspect testing system, which we just simply do not have the manpower to handle, and Doug would have that many more stats to run (he does that all by himself, I might add). With practicality in mind, we decided that it would be best to start things out with what's easily controlled, and expand out from there once things start stabilizing.
We have more than enough capable people to lead one Doubles and one Triples metagame (Ubers tiers do not require any leadership or suspect process so the exclusion of even those is especially perplexing. Dream World tiers for these formats would be good, but are not required.). On PO the stat collecting is vastly more simple once set up, it is almost entirely automated, and adding extra tiers should have precisely zero impact on the difficulty. The lower tiers for Doubles and Triples would only be added once they stabilize and only if there is significant interest as well as people willing to do the work of running them, they are a non-immediate concern at worst.

Neglecting these at this early stage is a huge setback. It sets a false precedent that they are inferior metagames and damages their development without giving any benefit.
 

Cyrrona

starlet
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First and foremost, a big thank you to Philip and the rest of the 5th Generation Policy Crew for working through these complicated issues and imposing some order on everything. Black/White dumped an overwhelming amount of new material on us, so I've got to commend you guys for straightening it all out in a timely manner. I'm also very glad we're respecting the results of the polls. While I do have a great deal of faith in Phil and the council he pieced together, I'm also a huge proponent of the democratic process (especially when the voting pool consists of PR users), and it's nice to see that being featured so prominently right off the bat.

I think I agree with locopoke on the Full Dream World suspect testing--it seems excessive considering the unofficial nature of that metagame. I'd also like to see doubles/triples supported and kind of feel those metagames are more relevant than things like 3rd Gen, but I understand "limited manpower" all too well and wouldn't expect a sizeable project like that to assemble itself instantly. As long as those are given a fair shake down the road, I'll be satisfied.

Also looking forward to suspect testing discussion! Participating and voting in those was one of my favorite things about Generation 4, and I think we'll really be able to streamline the process now that we've seen what works and what doesn't.
 

Super

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I wanted to mention that a big reason for the Dream World ladders is technical. While singles/doubles/triple and previewing teams can be altered in challenges, Dream World abilities can't. The only way to let people use things like Eccentric Ditto and Drought Ninetails for battles is to support an entire ladder for it. It also helps that the Dream World ladders are also very popular.
 

Mario With Lasers

Self-proclaimed NERFED king
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How about Miracle Shooter? I believe we've come to a conclusion we won't officially endorse it, but won't it have a ladder, or at least be a possible rule for challenge play?
 

eric the espeon

maybe I just misunderstood
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PO does not have it implemented, so it would be impractical to support it or Rotation battles at this point. We could come up with a basic ruleset for Wifi, but doing suspect test or anything of that kind would be hard.
 

B-Lulz

Now Rusty and Old
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Totally agreeing with Eric the Espeon, why are there no Doubles and Triples metagames? There is really no reason as far as I can see that there shouldn't be, especially if you are going to use an 'oydated' VGC 2009 metagame.
 
Totally agreeing with Eric the Espeon, why are there no Doubles and Triples metagames? There is really no reason as far as I can see that there shouldn't be, especially if you are going to use an 'oydated' VGC 2009 metagame.
I do not see a point in having both a doubles and a VGC metagame. I think it's better to wait until Nintendo releases the official rules for the B&W VGC rather then creating our own ruleset. After all Nintendo's rules for the VGC have proven to be sufficient for creating a competitive doubles environment

Triples is more of a technical issue, no simulator has it's mechanics correctly implemented yet. As such it's impossible to create an initial ladder for that particular metagame.

edit: I'm aware that PO has implemented a triples metagame however the little research we've done so far is not enough to warrant a correct simulation of the metagame
 

cim

happiness is such hard work
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I agree with mien. We cannot simulate Triples because we don't know enough about Triples mechanics yet, and making a Doubles metagame would just end up being redundant at best with VGC which is what every doubles player is going to play anyway.
 

Firestorm

I did my best, I have no regrets!
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I dislike the idea of having "OU Doubles" being just 2v2 with the Singles list for Ubers as that really makes no sense, but if we're looking at making a ton of ladders that we aren't going to take the time to support on the site, I don't see the harm in it. I prefer a more concentrated list of ladders we can actually support though.

We've already made the decision that the official non-Singles metagame of Smogon is going to be VGC and I don't see the need to develop more and more metagames ourselves. Especially when VGC develops a new one for us every year. If people want to do what those involved in Little Cup did and develop a metagame, then I can see the merit in having a ladder for it. But why force the issue? The idea of Doubles using the Smogon Singles banlist is flawed in the first place.
 

eric the espeon

maybe I just misunderstood
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For mechanics, yes, there may be flaws. It is likely that the mechanics are imperfect. This is not something which should prevent us from starting the metagame, the triples metagame on PO should be accurate in the vast majority of cases. Suggesting that a few possible glitches is reason to prevent the formation of a metagame is akin (though the importance of triples glitches may be greater) saying the Sub/Rapid Spin NB glitch, should have prevented Smogon from forming an ADV metagame, or the assortment of other problems with the sims available for each generation should have stopped us from playing (ParaBounce and Grass Knot/boost glitches on shoddy anyone?).

I also dislike the idea of simply starting with the OU banlist, however since the 5th gen banlist is minimalist in the extreme, and only includes those Pokemon with such a huge advantage in stats/movepool/type that they force a large number of Pokemon out of the metagames they are in, it is also the logical starting point for doubles and triples. The other formats should not follow any additional bans based off testing in singles.

As for the VGC argument: The aim was certainly to support VGC, however we do not have a VGC ruleset. In the meantime the best practice that future VGC players are going to get is on a doubles or triples ladder. If you want more people to be better prepared for VGC, implementing ladders as soon as possible is the way to go.

And though it is important for VGC to be supported and given prominence, it is the official metagame after all, it's existent and support does not exclude other formats. Personally, after playing a significant amount of both VGC 2010 and OU Doubles, I have found OU doubles to be a vastly more interesting and complex competitive game because of the extra options per turn you have, and the lack of a small number of highly dominating strategies. I believe that some of those who have given both a try without having previously made up their mind may find the same. Deciding not to start with a Doubles and Triples metagame because nintendo may make a VGC with those rules is counterproductive for all Doubles and Triples players.
 
When setting up a BW wifi battle with a friend, be it single, double, triple, or rotation, you have the option of choosing whether the battle will be Restricted or Unrestricted.

Selecting the Unrestricted option means anything goes. There is no level limitation or adjustment, no clause or hack regulation, nothing. Because of the complete freedom of unrestricted mode, it is the basis of Smogon's standardized metagames.

The Restricted option, on the other hand, limits you to one of the following:


Restricted Single Battle
Standard Cup (aka the primary Battle Tower mode)
Regulations:
Team preview ON (bring 6, pick 3)
Flat Battle
Species Clause
Item Clause
Soul Dew Clause
Event Pokemon banned
Special Pokemon banned

Restricted Double Battle
Double Cup (aka the VGC 2009 mode)
Regulations:
Team preview ON (bring 6, pick 4)
Flat Battle
Species Clause
Item Clause
Soul Dew Clause
Event Pokemon banned
Special Pokemon banned

Restricted Triple Battle
Regulations:
Team preview ON (bring 6, select order)
Flat Battle
Species Clause
Item Clause
Soul Dew Clause
Event Pokemon banned
Special Pokemon banned

Restricted Rotation Battle
Regulations:
Team preview ON (bring 6, pick 4)
Flat Battle
Species Clause
Item Clause
Soul Dew Clause
Event Pokemon banned
Special Pokemon banned



The list of event Pokemon are as follows:
Mew
Celebi
Jirachi
Deoxys (all forms)
Phione
Manaphy
Darkrai
Shaymin (all forms)
Arceus
Kerudio
Meloetta (all forms)
Genosect

The list of special Pokemon are as follows:
Mewtwo
Lugia
Ho-Oh
Kyogre
Groudon
Rayquaza
Dialga
Palkia
Giratina (all forms)
Reshiram
Zekrom
Kyurem
*Note that special Pokemon =/= uber Pokemon, even though most Pokemon on the list belong to both groups.*


Regulations are defined as follows:
Flat Battle - All Pokemon lv. 51 and above are autoleveled to 50 for the duration of the battle
Species Clause - No more than one Pokemon of the same species (including alternate forms) are allowed per team
Item Clause - No more than one of each item is allowed per team
Soul Dew Clause - The item Soul Dew is banned from play


My wish is that we support each of these restricted modes (maybe not Standard Cup right now though since it's a little redundant with our existing singles metagame). These are the reasons why:

- It would solve our problem of not wanting to formulate our own doubles or triples metagame on top of what VGC is using, because the mode used in VGC could likely be any one of the restricted modes; doubles, triples, rotation, even 3 Pokemon singles.

- In the case of triples and rotation, which we have little or no experience with whatsoever, Nintendo's restrictions would be a great starting point until we get used to how they play.


Edit: In case I wasn't clear, the only ones of these I'm pushing for immediately are doubles and triples. I know PO doesn't do rotation right now.
 

cim

happiness is such hard work
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Am I the only person who thinks we shouldn't officially recognize / have a ladder for EVERY possible metagame initially? Wouldn't focus be better than dilution, at least initially?
 
I am of the feeling that it would be better to simply embrace team reveal as the standard that it is and not go out of our way to incorporate past methods in to other metagames as an alternative. The notion for those who prefer it is nice, but as Chris pointed out, it dilutes the standard OU tier.

Also, depending on how quickly Dream World abilities are released (Drought Ninetales and Drizzle Politoed are already available) we might not even need a secondary Dream World metagame; we could simply exclude whatever remaining Dream World Pokemon that haven't been released the way we originally planned. Of course I think this would be best when a fair majority of them have become legal.
 

Chou Toshio

Over9000
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I am very disappointed not to see doubles or triples suggested as an initial metagames, we have literally nothing to lose by offering these metagames on a ladder.
Wouldn't it be better to have a VGC 2010 (then 2011 when rules come out) ladder, using Nintendo's ban list? Since we are trying to encourage VGC participation, making a "Smogon Doubles Tier" when no such user base exists, seems to directly dilute from the base of players targeted at VGC.

Assuming this makes sense, than there really isn't any "policy" to discuss here because VGC ladders will just follow VGC policy.

Especially in regards to tiering, as from what I understand the abilities of pokemon in doubles is significantly different than singles.
 

eric the espeon

maybe I just misunderstood
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Chou, in my previous post I addressed precisely those points. Additionally it's quite probable that nintendo will chose triples not doubles as the official metagame, which would lead to absolutely zero support if we don't set up a doubles ladder.

And for anyone who thinks "metagame dilution" (or, in reality, metagame diversity) is a bad thing, I encourage you to read this brilliant post by Doug. Metagame diversity is the best thing that could happen to competitive Pokemon, the narrow minded idea that we should exclude entire formats like doubles and triples to prevent people from moving out of singles environments with hundreds of thousands of battles per month is insane to me. Likewise, the idea that we should not support (meaning: have a ladder set up with a base ruleset, and have someone in charge of keeping an eye on it with regards to balance) balanced formats for these because nintendo may bring out a ruleset for one of them, which may or may not fulfill the characteristics of a desirable metagame, is extremely strange. If a large number of people would honestly prefer to play Doubles or Triples standard than VGC it tells you that the VGC metagame does not suit everyone, and that we can provide for them much better with a separate ladder. Not everyone is going to be able to attend a VGC tournament, some just want to play the best games they can.

Edit: Just read the VGC rules thread which went up a couple of hours after your post. Looks fairly balanced which is cool, but amazingly restrictive. Excluding the first four generations of Pokemon entirely. Lets make VGC major and support it in major tournaments, but also allow a standard doubles metagame to develop with all the diversity of five generations of Pokemon rather than saying that doubles players can't have a ladder (and perhaps more importantly scripted real time tournaments, since on PO they'll rely on current tiers unless someone changes the script) other than one which disallows the use of a vast majority of the available balanced Pokemon.
 

shrang

General Kenobi
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Is there going to be a 4th gen NU ladder?? IIRC, there was (finally) an NU ladder started up on the last few days of Smogon's affiliation with Pokemon Lab (Which twash spent a lot of effort getting up), are we going to continue this??
 
First I want to say that I fully support the 'as released Dream World abilities and previewable teams' rulings for standard ladders.

So I was just wondering, if we're going with banlist #2, but a little while later we feel that maybe Lugia's not going to be so broken in the metagame we have, are we able to drop it down like we did with 4th gen UU, and let it participate OU to see if it can fit in? (same goes for any of the other pokemon on that list although Lugia's clearly the most likely to cause this controversy).
Though I have not ironed out these details yet, I have thought about this and would like to open the option later down the line to bring down suspects to test.
Instead of (or alongside?) deciding if we should test Lugia later, I'd rather a seperate poll be put up to decide if Lugia should be unbanned initially. I agree with you that the tier lists in the polls had minor flaws (the two lists having one or the other being the main one) and think this is the easiest (and fastest) way to address the issue. The runner-up list was rather close in the poll, it's very possible people will agree with its initial unbanning (meaning that a poll won't be a waste of time, and it won't upset a majority of people). Any other options would be stepping on toes.

Onto the initial ladder list itself, I have varied opinions about each of them so I'll address them all individually in case anybody wants to nitpick specific parts.


---Gen IV VGC---
I don't completely agree with having both VGC '09 and '10; I think it should be one or the other. To quote Doug, "yes we can" support both, but I don't think that means we should. It's looking like we're going to have a ridiculous number of ladders as it is, and I frankly don't see the point or benefit of having both. A very large majority of players will be focused on Gen V, so I don't really see the point to having both of them since they're essentially dead metagames. We should definitely keep one for the sake of preserving some kind of Doubles ruleset for Gen IV, but I can't imagine either ladder getting much activity and having both just splits that even more. This is just my opinion, I may be alone in this.

(I'm not qualified to comment on which VGC ruleset to use should we go this route)


---Gen IV NU---
I think the reason Gen IV NU is not up there is that it isn't officially sanctioned. My only beef with including a Gen IV NU ladder would be cries for suspect testing and a banlist. If we accept that the tier won't be regulated, I don't have a problem with it. It just does not have the activity to support it, even if somebody wanted to spearhead it.


---Gen V VGC and Doubles---
Originally (especially prior to BW's announcement), I was completely for making any Doubles (or Triples) ladder we have mirror the official VGC ruleset at the time. This was because between the two, VGC would be more popular (since skill with that metagame had real life implications), and it was so late into Gen IV that creating a specific banlist for Doubles wasn't ideal. It was both easy and efficient, and as such I didn't plan on changing my stance into Gen V (whether it be Triples or Doubles). Then the VGC '11 rules were announced; for those that haven't seen, only Isshu pokemon would be allowed. This severely limits the number of options available, and greatly reduces the merit of making it our supported Doubles format. There are much greater possibilities for the Doubles format, so I can no longer support using VGC as the default ruleset. They should be two seperate ladders. The Smogon Doubles ladder should only support Ubers until we determine how to handle bans.

Summary: VGC '11 should have its own ladder (to be replaced with each new ruleset), with a seperate Ubers Doubles ladder. A Dream World mirror ladder is optional, I have no preference.


---Gen V Triples---
As long as the sim supports it, I don't see a problem with having an Uber Triples ladder. EDIT: It slipped my mind that there's still quite a bit of research to be had with Triples. Just like Doubles, we need to figure out just how we're going to work the tiering in this format before we can ban anything, making Ubers the only available option. Once again Dream World is optional, I don't support or oppose it.


---Gen V Dream World tiering---
I completely agree that Dream World ladders should not have seperate tiering. Not only are we trying to regulate an imaginary metagame, but any bannings there would create a bias towards a pokemon's tiering once it's on the Standard ladder. Locopoke said it best really.
 

cim

happiness is such hard work
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I think we should somewhat strictly limit our "regulated" (i.e. official / ranked) ladders, but then allow as many "unregulated" ladders as people seem to want. Maybe even two servers, an "official" server and an "offbeat" server (The CaP server was basically just like this last gen)

DW should not be a regulated metagame. It's Dream World, it's just like CaP in that regard.
 

Ditto

/me huggles
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Destiny Warrior asked me to post this for him since he doesn't have PR access.

Destiny Warrior said:
Triples
I’d like to argue for the inclusion of triples in our initial metagames. I’m not linking to Doug’s post because I guess enough people have done it.

Now here are the arguments made against triples, and why I feel they do not hold water:

1. It splits the playerbase.
Like Doug has said, this will not affect us as much as most people make out. We have so many players, that embracing more metagames can only help increase the exploration of several more avenues, and we have enough competent members to lead the tiering for triples, so so-called “Smogon manpower” is not scarce.

1b. If we support this, why not support a metagame with no team preview?
A singles metagame with no team preview will have to be 3 Pokemon, level 50, and with Miracle Shooter on(IIRC MS can’t be switched off for IR battles, though I could be wrong)(in keeping with game mechanics). If the people supporting a metagame with no team preview are fine with this, then I have nothing against them saying so.

2. We have to make rules.
We already have an initial banlist for singles, and if we choose to support level 100 play, we can use this banlist and proceed from there. If most people do not believe the singles banlist is sufficient for triples, we can go for the drastic measure: using the VGC ruleset for triples, but to keep with one of the game’s own rules, have 6 Pokemon per team instead. I think everybody agrees with me here, because 4 Pokemon is insufficient for a decent triples metagame to form without it becoming overly team matchup reliant.

As you can see, there is no real argument against triples being implemented. When this is the case, can triples being implemented on the server at least be reconsidered? If we’re unwilling to make rules, we can use the pre-made ruleset from VGC with minor alterations, which should provide a sufficient metagame in case we do not want to have a triples metagame with non-Isshu Pokemon.
 

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