Edit: See here https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/transitivity-in-rby-bans-across-tiers.3755580/post-10360707
Hello RBY,
I want to start a discussion on transitivity in bans across tiers as this is a subject that has come up multiple times before but never really been formally codified. In short, I want to finalize a precedent on if bans in RBY tiers should be transitive to all tiers below them. We sort of soft-launched this discussion when asking about confusion before, but I think it's important to have this discussion independent of any one specific ban.
What is transitivity?
In short, transitivity means that if something is banned from a higher tier, it is automatically banned from a lower tier. Historically, this is the case for nearly 100% of Pokemon bans and a significant number of move/item/ability bans. The main exception is non-Pokemon bans in tiers that no longer do active tiering - for example, ADV OU's Soundproof ban does not extend to ADV UU, and BW OU's Gems ban does not extend to BW lower tiers.
History of transitivity in RBY
Historically, RBY non-Pokemon bans haven't been transitive, but we haven't had many in the modern era - we had a quickly-overturned ban on sleep in UU, and the currently-active Agility + Partial Trapping complex ban in UU that is often maligned for various reasons (being a complex ban, not being transitive, people wanting a simple ban on Wrap or Partial Trapping, issues with how the suspect was run). At the time these bans were done, transitivity wasn't really in discussion because RBY NU was still in its early stages and tiers like PU and ZU were incredibly unofficial with zero tournament presence - I genuinely don't think anyone was even really thinking about active tiering or development of lower tiers at the time.
Transitivity discussion started again with discussion of broader mechanics that have large influences on lower tiers, like confusion and partial trapping, and whether it makes sense that such a mechanic can be banned in a higher tier but legal in a lower tier. During the prior discussion on confusion across lower tiers, a majority of respondents and supermajority of qualified respondents (those who have reqs to vote in their lower tier or tiers of choice) supported transitivity in any move bans; any followup was put on hold due to RBYPL.
Why is transitivity important?
Because RBY's tiers are all actively tiers and continue to shift, I believe transitivity is extremely important in bans, otherwise tiering becomes less sensible. If we were to say, for example, that Moltres is too strong for OU, it seems a little nonsensical tiering-wise to say it's fine in NU; by the same logic, we could argue that dropping Exeggutor or Snorlax to UU is fine because their poor Speed makes them ill-equipped for the metagame and unlikely to dominate it in the same way they do OU, but this would obviously be antithetical to how we currently do tiering. I think this equally extends to move bans - it's impossible to evaluate a Pokemon's strength if it randomly gains and loses options as we move up and down tiers. For example, if we banned sleep moves in OU and NU, but not UU, then most sleepers are now going to end up in UUBL or PUBL, as a bunch of sleepers that don't make the cut in UU drop to NU, are immediately useless without their best move, and drop to PU where they now suddenly regain a powerful option.
Discussion
I want to open this thread for comments from RBY players on transitivity as a whole, without considering any specific bans, because I think it's important to set a precedent on this. My position is that we should have transitivity in bans - if OU bans something, it's gone from UU and below, if NU bans something, it's gone from PU and below, and so on - because we are actively tiering and it would make continued efforts to tier a bit farcical if moves or Pokemon are banned piecemeal from different metagames while being legal in tiers below the ones they're banned in. I have a few discussion questions to get this started though I'm open to new questions and perspectives being introduced by others.
I also want to be very clear that this should be discussed independently from any potential upcoming suspects - we are setting a framework for how RBY low tiers tier as a whole, not picking our position based on if we want to keep a specific move legal in our favorite tier later.
1. Should bans be transitive?
2. Is there a good reason to not set a precedent and have some bans be transitive and some not be transitive? If so, how do we decide which is which and who gets reqs to decide this?
3. How should this precedent be decided? Is there a reasonable way to hold a vote on it that doesn't get biased by the current discourse on partial trapping?
4. Is there any argument for bans being transitive across low tiers but not from OU, meaning that a ban in UU affects all lower tiers but a ban in OU affects no other tiers?
Discuss, or at least give me a one or two line response about how you feel about transitivity, thank you
Hello RBY,
I want to start a discussion on transitivity in bans across tiers as this is a subject that has come up multiple times before but never really been formally codified. In short, I want to finalize a precedent on if bans in RBY tiers should be transitive to all tiers below them. We sort of soft-launched this discussion when asking about confusion before, but I think it's important to have this discussion independent of any one specific ban.
What is transitivity?
In short, transitivity means that if something is banned from a higher tier, it is automatically banned from a lower tier. Historically, this is the case for nearly 100% of Pokemon bans and a significant number of move/item/ability bans. The main exception is non-Pokemon bans in tiers that no longer do active tiering - for example, ADV OU's Soundproof ban does not extend to ADV UU, and BW OU's Gems ban does not extend to BW lower tiers.
History of transitivity in RBY
Historically, RBY non-Pokemon bans haven't been transitive, but we haven't had many in the modern era - we had a quickly-overturned ban on sleep in UU, and the currently-active Agility + Partial Trapping complex ban in UU that is often maligned for various reasons (being a complex ban, not being transitive, people wanting a simple ban on Wrap or Partial Trapping, issues with how the suspect was run). At the time these bans were done, transitivity wasn't really in discussion because RBY NU was still in its early stages and tiers like PU and ZU were incredibly unofficial with zero tournament presence - I genuinely don't think anyone was even really thinking about active tiering or development of lower tiers at the time.
Transitivity discussion started again with discussion of broader mechanics that have large influences on lower tiers, like confusion and partial trapping, and whether it makes sense that such a mechanic can be banned in a higher tier but legal in a lower tier. During the prior discussion on confusion across lower tiers, a majority of respondents and supermajority of qualified respondents (those who have reqs to vote in their lower tier or tiers of choice) supported transitivity in any move bans; any followup was put on hold due to RBYPL.
Why is transitivity important?
Because RBY's tiers are all actively tiers and continue to shift, I believe transitivity is extremely important in bans, otherwise tiering becomes less sensible. If we were to say, for example, that Moltres is too strong for OU, it seems a little nonsensical tiering-wise to say it's fine in NU; by the same logic, we could argue that dropping Exeggutor or Snorlax to UU is fine because their poor Speed makes them ill-equipped for the metagame and unlikely to dominate it in the same way they do OU, but this would obviously be antithetical to how we currently do tiering. I think this equally extends to move bans - it's impossible to evaluate a Pokemon's strength if it randomly gains and loses options as we move up and down tiers. For example, if we banned sleep moves in OU and NU, but not UU, then most sleepers are now going to end up in UUBL or PUBL, as a bunch of sleepers that don't make the cut in UU drop to NU, are immediately useless without their best move, and drop to PU where they now suddenly regain a powerful option.
Discussion
I want to open this thread for comments from RBY players on transitivity as a whole, without considering any specific bans, because I think it's important to set a precedent on this. My position is that we should have transitivity in bans - if OU bans something, it's gone from UU and below, if NU bans something, it's gone from PU and below, and so on - because we are actively tiering and it would make continued efforts to tier a bit farcical if moves or Pokemon are banned piecemeal from different metagames while being legal in tiers below the ones they're banned in. I have a few discussion questions to get this started though I'm open to new questions and perspectives being introduced by others.
I also want to be very clear that this should be discussed independently from any potential upcoming suspects - we are setting a framework for how RBY low tiers tier as a whole, not picking our position based on if we want to keep a specific move legal in our favorite tier later.
1. Should bans be transitive?
2. Is there a good reason to not set a precedent and have some bans be transitive and some not be transitive? If so, how do we decide which is which and who gets reqs to decide this?
3. How should this precedent be decided? Is there a reasonable way to hold a vote on it that doesn't get biased by the current discourse on partial trapping?
4. Is there any argument for bans being transitive across low tiers but not from OU, meaning that a ban in UU affects all lower tiers but a ban in OU affects no other tiers?
Discuss, or at least give me a one or two line response about how you feel about transitivity, thank you
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