tier idea #1

[chaos]

Preface: With DP we have enough Pokemon that you can pretty much make a team out of pseudo-legendaries and it would work. Before, this wasn't really the case.

In some RS tournaments the UU metagame was played with a BL clause - in other words, you got to use 1 or 2 BLs on your team depending on the tournament. Do you all think, since there are more Pokemon in DP, that a similar idea would work for standard? It'd be a hard to enforce rule, but there are enough Pokemon to make a limbo between OU and Ubers with Pokemon like Wobbuffet, Tyranitar, Garchomp, (whatever we decide in there), etc.

If we segregate the tiers a bit more tournament holders can decide just what Pokemon they want to be included and it might spice things up a bit.

 

[Aeolus]

I like the idea of making finer divisions, further segregating pokemon into finer tiers. We just have to be careful that we are clear that pokemon in the tier between OU and Uber aren't expressly banned in normal play. Since the rules we adopt for our official tournaments (like the Smogon Tour) become the standard by which all matches are generally governed, we need to exercise caution in the nomenclature of that specific tier.

 

[Synre]

I'm not certain how necessary it is but I'm not necessarily opposed to trying, I guess.

I'm curious exactly how you'd segregate the tiers, though. OU and UU? Psuedolegendary and OU and UU? 'i could be banned', psuedolegendary, ou, and uu? How many of each would you allow by default? Would it replace standard rules or(I assume based on how you wrote this) just be an alternative ruleset usable in tournaments?

The concept is kinda interesting but I don't have a very strong opinion on it without more details I guess.



Regardless in playing shoddy and watching DP Bot and playing on Wifi it doesn't seem like the current game is really all that imbalanced anyway, and more than any of the Pokemon people are bitching about the most imbalanced thing in the game by far(although I am opposed to clausing it) is definitely Stealth Rock.

 

[Kumar]

Definitely liking this idea as I always liked using varied stuff. I'm all in for this as long as we are very careful in the tiering.

 

[Ecnemalas]

A metagame called something like OUber?

I like this idea. I probably won't use it so much as other people, but it can probably spur more tournament ideas and participants, along with just having another new metagame that's not as gimmicky, if at all.

 

[chaos]

I'm not certain how necessary it is but I'm not necessarily opposed to trying, I guess.

I'm curious exactly how you'd segregate the tiers, though. OU and UU? Psuedolegendary and OU and UU? 'i could be banned', psuedolegendary, ou, and uu? How many of each would you allow by default? Would it replace standard rules or(I assume based on how you wrote this) just be an alternative ruleset usable in tournaments?


The concept is kinda interesting but I don't have a very strong opinion on it without more details I guess.

the current tier list: Uber, OU, BL, UU, NU

revised: Uber, Limbo, OU, BL, UU, NU

it literally just shoves another tier in there. Example Limbo pokemon:

Celebi
Rhyperior
Tyranitar
Garchomp
Cresselia
Salamence
Wobbuffet
Deoxys-E

basically, instead of banning all of these Pokemon or allowing them all, you'd restrict their usage to X (typically X would be 1 or 2) amount on a team, just like how in some UU tournaments you could use X amount of BLs. Hopefully, with some tweaking, this would open up uses for a lot more Pokemon because there isn't the pressure to use every single super-awesome Pokemon there is but there also isn't the curse of being too good for OU but not good enough for Uber, and thus not seeing any play whatsoever.

 

[X-Act]

I'm really liking this idea. Thumbs up from me.

 

[Synre]

We've been arguing about it on IRC but i think in general it could be good.

As far as potential Pokemon for that tier:


Celebi, Tyranitar, Manaphy: I think this is the perfect tier for them since they were debatably too good for OU anyway. Manaphy still might be too good.


At this point however, you have to look at who else you can put in this tier while still being a viable alternative to the above. I think it was Mekkah who suggested we put Raikou there on IRC which I kind of laughed at just because it's not even OU as it is, but I'm curious how broad you want the tier to be I guess.

We didn't mention Rhyperior on IRC but I think it would definitely be an option for that tier(although it really hurts his potential Sandstream synergy), and Salamence and Garchomp are also really obvious choices for this tier I think. I'm not as sold on Cresselia but I think it might be a good balancing move since as a whole we're just clausing offensive Pokemon.

Although in all honesty after the Pokemon mentioned(and Deoxys-E and Wobby if you want to pity throw them in), Gyarados is probably the next choice I'd suggest. I think doing this could be really cool for stuff like Shaymin and Dragonite who would probably see more use with Celebi and Salamence claused.


I like this idea the more I think about it though!

EDIT: I touched on the only thing about this that kinda worries me above, btw. About how this mostly clauses offensive pokemon - with the exceptions of Celebi(who I never see right now anyway) and Cresselia(who at the moment I suspect will not actually stay in this tier), everything we're proposing to clause is very offensive. I am concerned that by limiting so many offensive monsters without doing anything significant to the defensive ones(Bronzong, Blissey, Dusknoir, Skarmory, etc. are laughing at this idea) the clausing might slow the game down a bit.

EDIT2: beaten

 

[chaos]

You'd need to put heavy defensive Pokemon in there. Maybe bump the number to 3 and put the defacto defensive walls and sweepers. Cresselia is a must imo. If you clause all of the offensive pokemon, teams in the vein of ET will dominate and nobody wants to play DP-GSC.

Raikou isnt one I was thinking about...

Revised:

Ubers
Limbo-A
Limbo-B
OU
BL
UU
NU

Limbo-A carries Pokemon we would normally ban in OU, like possibly Manaphy, Celebi, Tyranitar.
Limbo-B carries shit like Cresselia, Garchomp, etc.

That way we have a universal tier list and we can add several rulesets for it:

I.E, "Standard" is X pokemon from Limbo-A/Limbo-B and any amount from other tiers aside from Uber.
"OU" is Limbo-B + all non Ubers, no restrictions on number.

and so on...

 

[chaos]

just fyi, I can't come on IRC at work. Post relevant parts of your arguments so I can read please!

 

[Synre]

The conversation devolved into some bullshit I'll try and fix it later since work doesn't need me until 2 now but anyway, as far as tiering I like the Limbo-A/B system, i think I would tier it something like this right now:

Uber
Mewtwo
Mew
Lugia
Ho-Oh
Latias
Latios
Kyogre
Groudon
Rayquaza
Deoxys (RS, FR, LG)
Dialga
Palkia
Giratina
Darkrai
Arceus

Limbo-A
Wobbuffet
Manaphy
Deoxys-E
Tyranitar
Celebi

Limbo-B
Salamence
Garchomp
Jirachi
Cresselia
Rhyperior


Heatran(even though it's not nearly as used as it should be) and Gyarados are other potential candidates for that tier, and there's still a hell of a lot of walls left on neither of these lists (Blissey, Bronzong, Skarmory, Dusknoir, Hippowdon) that something will probably need to be done about with a lot of the main sweepers limited.

 

[AvatarST]

Eh, I like this idea, might as well post my opinion:

Ubers
<obvious ones>
Deoxys (all forms)
Manaphy
Wobbuffet

Limbo-1
Tyranitar
Salamence
Garchomp
Celebi

Limbo-2
Blissey
Cresselia
Jirachi
Gyarados
(etc.)

I see it more or less this way. It's a great idea anyway, I like it; I guess we'd eventually come up with -what- pokemon we'd put in each tier, but the idea is good.

Right now the metagame is overcentralized to the point that you really can't get away without using Blissey, maybe replaceable with Cresselia, and stealth rock is on every team.

On the other hand I haven't seen Manaphy and Celebi much, I guess people consider them taboo to a point. Interestingly enough, Tyranitar is also less common than a lot of things.

 

[Aeroblacktyl]

wait call me ignorant but i don't understand. if we go with this new tier, when would you ever use a full team of all those limbo pokes? kind of restrictive imo if we're only to use 1. seems almost gimmicky

 

[AvatarST]

The point of this idea is exactly preventing people from using a team full of limbo pokes...

 

[Surgo]

Possible defensive limbo-B pokemon:

Skarmory
Blissey
Hippowdon
Cresselia

Gliscor? Swampert? I think that's taking it a bit far but what do you all think.

 

[Synre]

I'd say those those four(and probably Bronzong although it can't recover nearly as efficiently as the others) should definitely be considered, Gliscor and Swampert I'd say aren't used nearly enough right now to justify putting them in that tier, especially considering Swampert lacks a non-rest recovery move.

 

[Mekkah]

I.E, "Standard" is X pokemon from Limbo-A/Limbo-B and any amount from other tiers aside from Uber.
"OU" is Limbo-B + all non Ubers, no restrictions on number.

This really tickles my fancy. I think Gliscor is taking it a little too far...also consider Heracross. Hippowdon for Limbo-B sounds really good to me, especially with Tyranitar in Limbo-A.

- I suggested Raikou mostly because Sand Stream was being limited, Celebi was getting pulled out and now we're also tiering up Blissey and all. I also suggest to take a look into Azelf and Lucario as offensive threats that you may consider throwing in Limbo-B...

 

[Aeroblacktyl]

Are we trying to move towards a move offensive paced metagame? Granted this metagame hasn't been explored for all its worth yet. However, RS started perhaps the same, but over time we had many phrases. So at this point, it seems like everyone's using the same offensive team or the same defensive one. By putting all the offensive ones in Limbo A, or so it appears, wouldn't you actually be encouraging more defensive based teams since there's no limit for Limbo B? I'm not saying there should be restriction on Limbo B either because it seems like another KD8 tournament or something if you restrict anything that's not uber to begin with anyways.

 

[GreenPikachu]

i just think it's all semantics right now, mop. things will be more clearly defined as more discussion takes place.

 

[chaos]

MoP... did you really process any of this?

Synre, your list is what I was thinking about. Maybe put Hippo in Limbo-B? Skarmory/Blissey are other candidates... I don't know if I would put Bronzong or Dusknoir though.

 

[Aeroblacktyl]

K I reread the first post again and if I'm not as ignorant as earlier, this is for tournament purposes only, which if it is, I withdraw all arguments. If not, I'd like to know the point of this.

 

[chaos]

It's not just for tournaments. Read the whole thread.

basically, instead of banning all of these Pokemon or allowing them all, you'd restrict their usage to X (typically X would be 1 or 2) amount on a team, just like how in some UU tournaments you could use X amount of BLs. Hopefully, with some tweaking, this would open up uses for a lot more Pokemon because there isn't the pressure to use every single super-awesome Pokemon there is but there also isn't the curse of being too good for OU but not good enough for Uber, and thus not seeing any play whatsoever.

Limbo-A and Limbo-B let both this system and Standard as we know it co-exist, so whichever people end up preferring we can gravitate to as "standard"

 

[Surgo]

After mulling your idea over for a couple hours, chaos, I have to say I really like it.

Also, I think Skarmory / Blissey / Hippowdon / Cresselia is all the defensive things we need to put in Limbo-B. I find that leaves a good mix of offense (shit like Dragonite) and defense (shit like Donphan) in standard.

I forgot completely about Ducknoir...let's talk more about what should be in Limbo-B compared to OU.

 

[chaos]

Not to mention Suicune lol

Reading the discussion in the Stark Mountain tiers thread, people really want a solution to shit like Cresselia. If Tyranitar goes, then Cresselia has no check, if Cresselia goes, it's really hard to check stuff like Salamence or Garchomp... with this system there is a little bit of everything but not enough to overwhelm anyone. And with the new tier layout, it's trivial to implement both "Standard" and this system at the same time for people to pick their preference (and what people prefer will probably become the official definition of "standard")

 

[Misty]

I'm going to be the first to say that I dislike this idea. It seems needlessly complex - like something Footnote or AA would dream up, and in the past we would have been like "lol".

While I think this idea could work, it's something that should remain on the back burner for a while to come. MoP, in his nonexistent wisdom, has a point - metagames shift a lot, and who knows what the future could hold for DP? Even with shoddybattle and wifi, this all seems a little too hasty with a lack of information.