What is the purpose of Standard Play?

[TheMaskedNitpicker]

There are many tier-based threads lately and many opinions bouncing around about what should and should not be in Standard Play (also called OU). Many of the differences of opinion we're seeing are based on 'theorymon' because different people have different predictions about how the inclusion or exclusion of Pokemon would affect the current standard metagme. I believe, however, that other differences of opinion exist because people disagree about what Standard Play is for.

I do not plan on posting my own arguments in this thread; I've learned that tiers are the third rail of Pokemon, so to speak. I'm highly curious about what the majority opinion is, though.

EDIT: I should specify that a discussion would also be nice. If you voted for 'none of the above', please explain your opinion.

EDIT 2: I am not asking why there are tiers at all. What I'm asking is this: when deciding which Pokemon should be in the standard metagame, what is/should be the goal?

 

[Deucalion2]

There isn't really an purpose to tiers what so ever, they merely mean that those who enjoy using weaker Pokemon like Delibird can be fairly matched against equal opponents, instead of being thrown up against Kyogre. Or, on the other hand, it means an a player who likes using high calibre Pokemon like Kyogre can battle equal opponents, and not have to beat the hell out of some player with mediocre Pokemon.

Really, it's all in the mind. But that doesn't mean I can't argue about it. I support Obi and Amazing Ampharos.

 

[Jenigmat]

Your first two poll choices in the poll say just about the same thing. I think that the point of having a designated "Standard play" is to create an environment in which skill at competitive pokemon is rewarded, while at the same time maintaining some amount of fun by introducing the element of unpredictablity of hax.

 

[TVboyCanti]

It's the same reason sports have weight classes, you know that the 235 lb, 6'5" tall fighter will always beat the crap out of the 5'10", 155 lb fighter, and that makes the fight boring. Pokemon is tiered for the same reason, it makes fights more interesting and less repetitive/predictable.

 

[Jiggy-Ninja]

Your first two poll choices in the poll say just about the same thing.

Actually, there are subtle differences.

The first option is oriented towards using the tiers as a banned list of sorts. Those Pokemon that are just outright too powerful for OU become Uber. A common Pokemon like Blissey that is extremely popular but doesn't necessarily overpower the metagame would be left in OU.

The second option uses the tiers as a tuning device. Blissey outshines just about every other Special wall in the game, and is used far, far more often. Blissey would probably be made Uber under this philosophy to allow other Special walls their time to shine.

I personally prefer Option 1. Option 2 is far too difficult and controversial while Option 3 is totally unfeasible.

To elaborate on what I mean by controversial, under any metagame, there will always be Pokemon that are never used either because a) something else does their job far better (Such as Heracross and Pinsir, b) it has a crippling Achilles heel (such as Articuno's SR weakness) or c) it doesn't do much anyway (like most NU Pokemon like Luvdisc, Spinda, etc). If you try to follow this philosophy, there will inevitably be those people that bitch abo how X and Y Pokemon aren't getting played, even when some of those Pokemon don't deserve to be played.

The third option is just stupid to try and attempt. Each new generation brings new Pokemon and attacks to the movepool. Unless you ban those new Pokemon and attacks, you will never be able to comepletely mimic and old metagame. And in the case of Pokemon, it is impossible to mimic a previous gen because each gen brought something that drastically changed how the competitive landscape worked. In addition to new attacks and Pokemon, each gen after RBY brought:

GCS: Hold Items; Special split into Sp.Atk and Sp.Def
Advance: Abilities
DP: Physical/Special split; many new usable items such as Choice Scarf/Specs, Life Orb, Focus Sash, etc.

Excet for Items, none of that stuff can be changed.

Option 1 is the only one that really makes any sense.

 

[zxn666]

it's all about pokemon matchups and the general strength of certain pokemon. A Salamence must be in higher tiers because it has awsome stats and would easily destroy any team filled with lower tier pokemon. If there were no standard metagame, then we could be facing mewtwos with plusle, and that will not be fair to the person with the plusle. tiers thus form due to the need for pokemon to be able to compete competitively.

 

[Selphimist]

Simply put, and I believe this is what most of the posters here are stating, or will agree with, is to have Pokemon battle Pokemon that match their abilities, stats, and movepool, and many of the placements are not because of a combination of these all, but on specific factors, strategies, metagame changes, and overall playability of the Pokemon in question.

Take Manaphy and Mew for example, Mew's extremely unpredictable, making it a tough opponent in OU to battle against, which is why it's in the Uber tier. Manaphy has a pretty.... standard movepool, but the strategy of using Manaphy makes it very difficult to defeat in OU, and therefore is Uber.

In any case, having no limitations on Pokemon use, Luck Items, and the like, are not very fun, due to the fact that all of the powerhouses will be used, and skill will not become a deciding factor in Pokemon Battling, which would make the game erratic and boring, no?

 

[Acredula]

Think of it this way: if tiers were not allowed, we would still be using Pokémon in BL, OU and übers, but UU and NU would feel left out. There would be no organization to the metagame, therefore not truely making it a metagame.

Jiggy-Ninja pretty much broke down the options, so I won't go over that.

When I first read this I though "What is standard? Great question." I personally feel that BL is the main tier. OU came to be when Pokémon started becoming over used, and UU came for Pokémon that weren't powerful enough to become used in BL. Pokémon in the über tier are Pokémon that were deemed too powerful for the standard metagame. NU came about for Pokémon that were still too weak for UU. Pokémon gain more advantages as the generations go on, and those in BL/OU might make it to übers or UU. I persomally think that some of OU needs to go to übers; TTar, Metagross, Salamence, etc, but that's just me.

I feel that TTar in particular has overcentralized the metagame in the fact that every team needs to counter it, unlike Heracross, who while still important is easier to counter and therefore only a single moveslot should be used in the possibility that a Heracross were to show up.

Now, that might bring up the issue of Blissey. Blissey is a wall, and walls doen't get countered. Blissey is the best Sp. Wall in the game, and she still has trouble against some Sp. Attackers (SpecsMence to be exact). Chansey, while having only slighty lower stats does not have the stability to stand up to a physical attack or block some of the powerful Sp. Attackers who could not overpower Blissey. So in that case, Blissey should not be banned because without her the metagame would be overcentralized towards Sp. Attackers. Besides, she's too weak for übers, although that has nothing to do with anything.

The main definition of UU is "too weak for standard" and the definition of übers is "too strong for standard". This means that standard is the central point of the metagame as a whole, which means that by altering standard we alter the entire metagame as a whole, because with out X in OU Y can now become BL. If Tyranitar were to be banned to übers, some strong Physical sweeper in BL would take his place much like if Heracross were banned we would start using Pinsor.

 

[cim]

I never thought I'd miss the gimmick set threads, but with all this Uber debating, it's kind of driving me insane.

Standard Play exists to get a good variety and balance of Pokémon into play while banning the select few that would throw off that balance. Of course, it's hard to do and the process for becoming Uber or Standard is kinda bad (look at all the resistance to basically an OU version of Electrode but all the support of a beefed-up Gengar and a Great Wall! God!), but even the most obfuscated processes will eventually work. Let's keep it at "Deoxys-S is OU, the rest can be done through observation of tourneys like the E cup."

 

[Pagz]

Where's the "for fun" option?

 

[goofball]

to have and create a "balance" in pokemon ;\

none of the option on the poll are that good anyways and the 3rd one is horrible

 

[IggyBot]

to have and create a "balance" in pokemon ;\

This. Tiers are supposed to balance the metagame, which is why we ban things that overcentralize, or unbalance the tier.

 

[Pneuma]

Tiers are supposed to balance the metagame

Well duh but you forgot to define balance.

"Blissey is balanced because it negates the threat of special attackers."
"Blissey is unbalanced because it usurps the position of all other special walls."

Both of these statements can't be true as something cannot be balanced and unbalanced at the same time and yet I hear both purported many, many times a day.

A thread like this is very necessary but I doubt many people realize what tiering is or does. Most people just want to "have fun" as has been stated already and there is little balance in fun. There is only fun in fun, be it Choice Band Luvdisc fun or Sand Veil Garchomp griefing/hax fun.

Too many people are at completely disparate ends for a community like this to ever have a focused purpose for tiering. The best you can do is reduce the number of complaints while maximizing the number of compliments in the most naive, Bayesian way. Try it, check for +/-, adjust as necessary.

I'm a huge fan of the soon-to-be tiering system where we simply tier based on usage with the supposition that people use things which are strong in order to win. It's a beautiful display of game theory and it fucking works. The only problem then is banned things that never see play (and the can of worms that is UU play).

 

[Lord Alchemy]

This poll is a tad... off. The entire point of option 1 is option 2. If you overcentralize you minimize the number of usable pokemon, so you ban those causing it to increase the maximum number of usable pokemon.

And shame on anyone who wants to go back to R/B/Y or G/S/C esque metagames. You're terrible people.

 

[goofball]

Blissey is the best at what it does if you're playing competitively, why do you care? you want the best pokemon for the position for your team. Im not here to debating tiers plz no -_-

 

[Pneuma]

I thought Jiggy-Ninja did a great job showing the difference between option 1 and 2.
And my example purposefully also showed the difference between option 1 and option 2.

@goofball: Then you are obviously of the option1 variety. I imagine that we as a competitive community would go for viability above all else, fuck the haters, etc. There are just enough people with differing opinions on what standard should be to completely fuck up our tier discussions and throw them off-center. This thread is to make clear exactly what OU is, as least to the majority (who in this case quashes).

 

[Raikou]

So in that case, Blissey should not be banned because without her the metagame would be overcentralized towards Sp. Attackers. Besides, she's too weak for übers, although that has nothing to do with anything.

I agree with some of your definitions but I just wanted to point out that Blissey is on almost every uber team as well as OU. She is the most used Pokemon in both of those tiers according to the usage lists from the past few months, there isn't even an Uber special wall who outperforms her. Blissey does overcentralize the game incredibly (every special attacker is measured by whether they can beat her or not, and many run mixed sets for that purpose alone), but the people who make the tiers would rather have her overcentralize the game than powerful special attackers like Specsmence. A trade off.

 

[Dragontamer]

Actually, there are subtle differences.

The first option is oriented towards using the tiers as a banned list of sorts. Those Pokemon that are just outright too powerful for OU become Uber. A common Pokemon like Blissey that is extremely popular but doesn't necessarily overpower the metagame would be left in OU.

The second option uses the tiers as a tuning device. Blissey outshines just about every other Special wall in the game, and is used far, far more often. Blissey would probably be made Uber under this philosophy to allow other Special walls their time to shine.

I personally prefer Option 1. Option 2 is far too difficult and controversial while Option 3 is totally unfeasible.

To elaborate on what I mean by controversial, under any metagame, there will always be Pokemon that are never used either because a) something else does their job far better (Such as Heracross and Pinsir, b) it has a crippling Achilles heel (such as Articuno's SR weakness) or c) it doesn't do much anyway (like most NU Pokemon like Luvdisc, Spinda, etc). If you try to follow this philosophy, there will inevitably be those people that bitch abo how X and Y Pokemon aren't getting played, even when some of those Pokemon don't deserve to be played.

I disagree. I'll use an example that I've used for banning Snover in UU. Snover alone is not overpowering in UU. However, Walrein, Lapras and Glaceon are arguably too powerful for UU when auto-hail is on. Therefore, Snover is banned, because banning only 1 pokemon is better for the metagame than banning 3.

Arguably, banning Blissey from the metagame decreases the size of the metagame. Specsmence counters drop to pokemon who can't recover off the damage (Empoleon, Tentacruel, etc. etc.) Yes, other special walls will become more popular but the metagame will shrink towards specialized counters to Specsmence and other high powered Sp. Attackers.

 

[Raikou]

Arguably, banning Blissey from the metagame decreases the size of the metagame. Specsmence counters drop to pokemon who can't recover off the damage (Empoleon, Tentacruel, etc. etc.) Yes, other special walls will become more popular but the metagame will shrink towards specialized counters to Specsmence and other high powered Sp. Attackers.

I'd actually like to see that in action in a smogon tournament or something. It can be argued both ways indefinately on theory (potentially dozens of special attackers can now compete in upper OU but potentially every team must have one Pokemon overspecialize for a few of them) so it really would take actual testing to find out.

 

[TheMaskedNitpicker]

Since there seems to be some confusion regarding the available options, I'll attempt to clarify here.

Option 1 and option 2 are not identical. With option 1, we essentially start with all Pokémon allowed and only ban Pokémon that 'overcentralize' the metagame. The reason that I put the word 'overcentralize' in quotes is that different people have very different opinions about what constitutes overcentralization. Obi's "What is Über?" thread, for instance, argues that very, very few Pokémon must be banned to avoid overcentralization. In a nutshell, Option 1 means that we're banning the fewest Pokémon possible in order to have a game that's still fun to play (has interesting strategy, etc.).

With Option 2, on the other hand, we may be more than willing to ban quite a few of the top-tier Pokémon to increase the number of Pokémon that can viably compete in Standard and reasonably expect to win. It's not an exact science, but the idea is that if banning set X of Pokémon from Standard makes set Y of Pokémon now viable in Standard and the number of Pokémon in Y is greater than the number of Pokémon in X, then the Pokémon in group X should be banned. Option 2 means that we're banning as many Pokémon as necessary to maximize variety within Standard play.

With Option 3, we're taking the pool of new Pokémon in D/P, comparing them to what was in Standard in 3rd Gen, and filing the Pokémon in their appropriate place. Anything that walks the line between the OU Pokémon and the Über Pokémon gets tested in OU. Option 3 means that we're letting tradition and past experience dictate the starting base for our new Standard tier.

I would like to note that Option 3 is getting a negative response and currently has the fewest votes, but it could be easily argued that this is what we currently have for our OU metagame. Obi's thread is doing a fairly good job of showing that the metagame could afford to unban a fair number of Pokémon, and as long as they were unbanned all at once we'd still have a balanced metagame. Hence, it seems unlikely that we're quite meeting Option 1's criteria. Conversely, UU and BL, as ill-defined as they sometimes are, each have more truly viable Pokémon than OU, so we're clearly not approaching Option 2. Of the new Pokémon introduced in D/P, which ones were made Über without testing? Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina, the equivalents of the Übers we had in 3rd Gen.

Now, I'm not saying that any of the options is better than any other and I'm not trying to prove a point. It's all a matter of taste. Some people like a small but interesting metagame that bans few Pokémon. Some people prefer a metagame with more variety. Others say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" The purpose of my poll is to gauge the number of people that fall into each camp. Why? Partly because I'm curious. But also because I believe it will help frame our tier discussions by helping us understand the motivations behind each other's arguments.

 

[Lord Alchemy]

I thought Jiggy-Ninja did a great job showing the difference between option 1 and 2.
And my example purposefully also showed the difference between option 1 and option 2.

Well then maybe the wording is wrong. Because if you ask me, just because Blissey is an amazing special wall doesn't mean that other special walls aren't useful. Banning Blissey doesn't make other Special Walls suddenly more useful. You just get into a huge shitstorm because other Special Walls will have problems handling the likes of Nasty Plot Porygon-Z, which would throw the balance of the entire metagame off.

I use Cresselia fairly effectively as my Blissey substitute. In fact, in the two or so years I've gotten back into competitive Pokemon (IN GAME) I've yet to actually a train a Blissey. This really isn't the point though. Cresselia and Blissey work very differently and you can't just switch them in and out for one another on the same team.

The two options are the same. If you ban Blissey now you've overcentralized the metagame because there are fewer or no options to deal with a couple major special attackers, which would result in more banning, which results in the usable Pokemon pool being smaller.

Just because you ban something doesn't magically bring all the worse things below it up in effectiveness. The tiers exist how they do for a reason. IN CHUNKS things are easier to manage.

They have to be managed in chunks, because if you start forcing people to use NU/UU/BL tanks or sweepers (BL not so much) against their OU counters then you've massively fucked up balance. The only exception is when things get shoved up into Ubers so that "Standards" doesn't get raped. There is no real place to put those guys, even if they don't work under that rule set.

So yeah, that explanation for Option 2 is fairly stupid. If you ban "the best OU *whatever the fuck*" then something else will just take its place as the "best" which will result in more bannings until everything left is exactly the same, and boring.

 

[Pneuma]

The ubers are the best *whatever the fuck* and then we banned them.
Did we keep banning everything one step weaker until we hit Luvdisc? No.
Why would it be the same for OU?

The second choice in the poll suggests that we can ban away those pokemon that eliminate too many options such as Blissey. I'm not a fan of it but I do feel like I should defend it in this poll since it was suggested.

 

[Chou Toshio]

There isn't really an purpose to tiers what so ever, they merely mean that those who enjoy using weaker Pokemon like Delibird can be fairly matched against equal opponents, instead of being thrown up against Kyogre. Or, on the other hand, it means an a player who likes using high calibre Pokemon like Kyogre can battle equal opponents, and not have to beat the hell out of some player with mediocre Pokemon.

Really, it's all in the mind. But that doesn't mean I can't argue about it. I support Obi and Amazing Ampharos.

They merely mean that those who enjoy using weaker pokemon like Specsmence can be fairly matched against opponents instead of being thrown our for superior pokemon like Latios. lol

 

[Lord Alchemy]

The ubers are the best *whatever the fuck* and then we banned them.
Did we keep banning everything one step weaker until we hit Luvdisc? No.
Why would it be the same for OU?

The second choice in the poll suggests that we can ban away those pokemon that eliminate too many options such as Blissey. I'm not a fan of it but I do feel like I should defend it in this poll since it was suggested.

Be specific. I want to know what "options" become open once Blissey is banned. Also keep in mind that the current state of the tiers is sorta my point. We banned just enough to make things interesting, and Blissey wasn't part of it, yet it was your specific example.

 

[Pneuma]

Be specific.

Fair enough. You are free to expect of me what I expect of you.

I want to know what "options" become open once Blissey is banned. Also keep in mind that the current state of the tiers is sorta my point. We banned just enough to make things interesting, and Blissey wasn't part of it, yet it was your specific example.

Blissey was just such an example. Who would terrorize us without Bliss? Specsmence, PZ, and Azelf? Any other special sweepers that hit hard and fast with unresisted attacks?

Assuming this list was compiled, we weigh the benefits of removing that chunk versus leaving it be. If we remove that chunk to ubers (ban 'em) do we gain a larger metagame or a smaller one? I could posit my own findings but this should really be a matter of research.

And really, research is what we are doing. Every battle adds one more test case to our communal experience. What we research is what our metagame is.

The last note is that this is all assuming you are of the second option for competitive play.