What Hikari doesn't get is that a strong argument doesn't correlate with how the meta feels when something is broken. A guy could say "yes xurkitree was broken because it was strong." and you would call him an idiot even though he is correct and then disenfranchise him. At the end of the day, it's not opinions that get things banned, it's how people feel when they play against it. People who get reqs go through 70 games against mega latias and can obviously tell its broken, they just can't put it into words.
-
Snag some vintage SPL team logo merch over at our Teespring store before January 12th!
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
np: USUM UU Stage 6 - Chanel (Ninetales-Alola banned, see post 19)
- Thread starter Hogg
- Start date
- Status
Both Hikari and myself were very vocal in our opinions regarding Latias-Mega, so I'm not sure where this is coming from. In fact, almost the entire council posted in the thread, generally with fairly detailed discussion points that often got ignored by the thread at large.
In any case, our issue was not with the fact that it was banned (there were players with decent pro-ban arguments, one of whom we promoted to full council shortly after this vote despite being adamantly pro-ban). However, we were very disappointed with the overall quality of the public suspect thread. Multiple people, for instance, claimed that Latias-Mega's major issues with status were irrelevant because they "shouldn't be forced to run Toxic on every team." A large number of posts were chock full of arguments that could be applied to literally any S-rank threat in any metagame ever, and many of those people voted. There WERE good arguments on both sides, and there were players whose opinions I respect who came to a very different conclusion than I did. But with our previous suspect process, there was no reliable way of vetting votes; anyone who had the time to grind on the ladder for a bit had just as much say as anyone else. This doesn't even touch on other issues, such as the fact that the suspect process is hugely prone to cheating. Every single suspect we end up infracting people for gaming the system in some ways, from the seemingly benign (but still verboten) issue of asking for wins from friends to the far more extreme issues of having other people ladder on their behalf. It's a messy system.
I should also point out that this has been an ongoing issue for a long time. We're using the Latias-Mega vote as an example because it was the most recent, but this is not a new problem. Hikari and I discussed using the release of USUM as an opportunity to fine-tune the suspect process so that it produces better results. This might be something as simple as tightening our fairly loose laddering standards, such as yeezyknows suggested, or might involve adding additional required elements to vote. We've also been trying to find ways to shorten the process overall, because an extremely common complaint during late SM was that the public suspect process took too long. The discussion on how to properly do this is still ongoing. In the meantime, we're not going to place the entire tiering process on hold, so we're continuing with council votes.
We're not trying to disenfranchize anyone (though our responsibility is NOT and has never been making the fairest possible voting process, but rather to produce the highest quality tier). We do want to tighten up the voting process and ensure a minimum of meta knowledge for anyone who votes, and we do want to do it in a way that makes the process shorter and cleaner.
False. Only people getting "free votes" were the council, but they were required to hit a certain number of games on the ladder and discuss about the suspect.
The system is built around making tiers better for everyone. If the old system isn't getting the job done in a desirable way, it needs to be replaced.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...anes-latias-mega-banned.3618821/#post-7559253
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...anes-latias-mega-banned.3618821/#post-7559523
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...anes-latias-mega-banned.3618821/#post-7559539
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...atias-mega-banned.3618821/page-2#post-7560371
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...atias-mega-banned.3618821/page-2#post-7560430
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...atias-mega-banned.3618821/page-3#post-7566322
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...atias-mega-banned.3618821/page-3#post-7570870
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...atias-mega-banned.3618821/page-4#post-7574617
What else should we do? delete post that don't support our opinion?
That's the key part. The vote was evenly split among the top players, but add the rest and you end up with an extremely one side pro-ban vote. The results don't reflect the opinion of the people who play the tier and the highest levels and that's a major problem. This isn't something that suddenly showed up during Mega Latias vote, this has been a problem since the very first public suspect, the results of that vote was when we decided we had enough of that flawed system.
You have to be slightly above average to get reqs. You don't need to know the tier, you don't need to care about it (a significant amount of people just vote to get TC), and anyone average with enough time can grind enough accounts until they get a solid streak going. A solid 90% of the ladder don't even have any idea of how to touch stall, so that alone is free reqs. People who are significantly worse than me, which includes the majority of the voters, shouldn't be the ones deciding our votes. Note that I don't consider myself a top dog in SM UU, it's just that the average voter isn't remotely close to be "top level".
Raising the GXE bar to around 85 would leave us with around 7-10 voters, which is literally something I mentioned in my post.
You seem to think you are the only one playing the game and your post is based on how "you feel", which is literally your opinion on something. Top level players go through hours of building, grinding against other top players, some of them do ladder regularly while others ladder for quick tests, and play in high level tournaments. That's how they get a "feel" of the tier. Talking about 70 ladder games (20 of which are against ambipom, 20 against bad stall, 15 do nothing balance teams, 15 are somewhat ok) as if it meant shit is kinda ridiculous. Playing 70 games doesn't make you good, knowledgeable, or automatically mean you know better than the dudes at the top.
You don't need a strong argument, we just don't want people with opinions based on dumb garbage, like "you have to prepare for it and it can run this moronic niche set to kinda beat one of its checks", to decide our tiering.
How a meta feels has nothing to do with how an opinion is voiced, and many of the top players have voiced garbage opinions before anyway. Most of the top players feed off opinions by regular players in this thread too. The way the meta feels on the ladder gives you a good indication of how broken something is. It doesnt matter how many UU tourneys you have played, if you have not played in the current meta it means almost nothing, and often times top players spend only 70 ladder games in a single meta getting reqs either way, something they no longer need to do.
The ceiling is way too low for reqs, that seems to be the problem, but the solution hasnt been to raise the bar, the solution has been to get rid of the system for a slightly less inferior but still inferior system. Why you have not simply raised the bar for reqs makes no sense.
The ceiling is way too low for reqs, that seems to be the problem, but the solution hasnt been to raise the bar, the solution has been to get rid of the system for a slightly less inferior but still inferior system. Why you have not simply raised the bar for reqs makes no sense.
Because we try to take a more nuanced approach to tiering than "Eh, let's just bump the GXE requirement a few times until we get the results we want." Because there are other concerns with the public suspect process, such as the large number of complaints we received at how long the process took, and if we're refining tiering we'd like to fix those as well. Because switching to a public tiering system led to a period where the UU tier was widely disdained as terrible and led to a large amount of player dissatisfaction, both by UU regulars and tour players. Because we don't want to constantly fiddle with the tiering process, and would like to avoid moving forward with a new tiering plan until we've hammered out all the details.
He did.
Multiple times.
So did Hogg.
Twice.
Several council members also shared their opinions and debated directly with each other and other users. Sacri' posted an analysis of tournament games and how the players involved handled Mega Latias. He also briefly debated Manipulative, starting here. Tony also made a post. I shared my thoughts as well. I don't remember the exact council roster at that point, but multiple other users who were or are on council or the rotating council, such as pokeisfun, Manipulative, and TSR, as well as other generally respectable users like xMarth, kokoloko, and dingbat, posted their opinions and their supporting arguments. If you wish to contend that the tier's leadership failed to lead the discussion in the sense that you or others didn't find any of the arguments that the Tier Leaders or council members made particularly compelling, or that those arguments weren't timed in such a way as to maximize their influence over the voting result, or that you, personally, would've preferred more of the tier's leadership or notable players to post more often, you may, of course, feel free to do so, but implying that the Tier Leaders and the council didn't actively participate in discussion, provide arguments and counterarguments, or reply to dissenters directly is patently false.
To address the rest of your post, tournament players don't get free votes for playing in UU tournaments and the public suspect testing system doesn't actually guarantee that that the top players will be voting. Instead, it guarantees that above-average players with time to grind get to vote. While community involvement and contribution is desirable, our primary goal is to have the best tier possible, not to turn tiering into a representative democracy.
The Mega Latias vote is one example of a systemic problem. It is not the only time a vote has been heavily swayed by a collection of voters with limited knowledge of, investment in, or ability to play the metagame at a high level (the Hydreigon vote in late ORAS is one of the more egregious examples of this phenomenon). The existence of TC drones also disproves the assertion that all voters are both knowledgeable and care about the state of the metagame. Plenty of users across all tiers simply pick up a sample team or get a team from a friend and grind out enough games to move them one step closer to their TC badge and never touch the tier otherwise. Many of these users do not post in the suspect discussion thread, contribute to other community resources and projects, play UU outside of major tournaments, or otherwise involve themselves in the tier.
You're correct that the opinions of players that are marginally (or even significantly) worse than top players aren't necessarily wrong. They're also not inherently right, nor do they inherently deserve to influence tiering. The details of the new system have yet to be fully determined, but the goal is to ensure that everyone with significant influence over UU tiering understands the game at a high level and is actively invested in the metagame.
I think too many people are fixating on the Mega Latias suspect itself and assuming that the tier leadership is changing the system because of that particular result rather than because the system itself is fundamentally flawed, which the references to the Mega Latias suspect are intended to demonstrate.
This is literally how opinions work.
Being able to communicate with other people is a fundamental life skill. Neither the Tier Leaders nor the council can magically know how every single UU player feels about the meta. Users who cannot communicate their opinions well enough to form basic arguments have limited influence over other users (note that this applies to both sides. Someone who goes through 70 games against Mega Latias and can obviously tell it's broken, but can't put it into words, has as little influence as someone who goes through 70 games against Mega Latias and can obviously tell it's not broken, but can't put it into words, which is to say almost none). If you can't justify your opinion on a basic level (see the explanations provided by individual council members for recent votes for examples of this. Nobody wrote a thesis about a Pokemon suspect, but everyone provided some reasoning for their votes, even if it was as simple as "Ninetales-Alola provides too much team support in a single slot" or "I have not had enough time to evaluate Ninetales-Alola's effect on the meta and therefore cannot pronounce it broken"), you don't deserve to make decisions that impact other people.
Smogon leaders have long been made of for being "elitist," and it sure is showing up lately. I am seeing two elitist arguments for changing the suspect process:
1. Too many of the voters are incompetent and dont understand the meta well enough.
2. There is enough cheating taking place to shift pokemon to the other side of the 50 50 threshold (ban / no ban) during the suspect.
The problem with the first argument is that the people that have voted these last suspects are acutally in the top 10-20% of all uu players. Even if the top 10-20% of players are slighty worse than the top 5% of players, they are not as clueless about the meta as Hikari makes them out to be. These players have nearly as good of an understanding of the meta as the top 5%. Saying that that the top 10-20% dont understand the meta enough to vote in suspects is a perfect example of why smogon is made fun of for being elitist.
The problem with the second argument is that cheating has a very small impact on suspect results. I dont think this has ever changed the final result of the vote of whether or not we ban the pokemon. Cheating occurs in a very small percentage of the final votes, and it happens on both sides (ban / no ban) during suspects. Changing the whole suspect process just because cheating is marginally altering the voting would be overly obsessing about the accuracy of the supsects. This would just cause bigger issues than we currently have.
As for length of suspect tests, a very easy way to shorten the suspects is to lower both the COIL and the maximum games allowed.
1. Too many of the voters are incompetent and dont understand the meta well enough.
2. There is enough cheating taking place to shift pokemon to the other side of the 50 50 threshold (ban / no ban) during the suspect.
The problem with the first argument is that the people that have voted these last suspects are acutally in the top 10-20% of all uu players. Even if the top 10-20% of players are slighty worse than the top 5% of players, they are not as clueless about the meta as Hikari makes them out to be. These players have nearly as good of an understanding of the meta as the top 5%. Saying that that the top 10-20% dont understand the meta enough to vote in suspects is a perfect example of why smogon is made fun of for being elitist.
The problem with the second argument is that cheating has a very small impact on suspect results. I dont think this has ever changed the final result of the vote of whether or not we ban the pokemon. Cheating occurs in a very small percentage of the final votes, and it happens on both sides (ban / no ban) during suspects. Changing the whole suspect process just because cheating is marginally altering the voting would be overly obsessing about the accuracy of the supsects. This would just cause bigger issues than we currently have.
As for length of suspect tests, a very easy way to shorten the suspects is to lower both the COIL and the maximum games allowed.
No matter how the council tries to dress it up now, it's pretty much obvious they just took the "masses" (as if 60 or so votes out of hundreds of players is a mass anyways) voting away because they disagreed with the Mega Latias ban. If the reasoning was so obvious to them, obviously they shouldn't have let it go to a public test and just council ban before.
Instead, the council decided to directly contradict the tiering they outlined last year for UU, for the sake of having a "better tier." I voted to ban Mega Latias and I still think that was a right decision. So why don't you explain to me why my opinion was wrong and why that means people like me should have even less influence than we already do?
Except this isn't possible, because you don't even know my opinion on why Mega Latias should be banned since I only posted once and never put my full opinion out. It was never a requirement that voters post their opinion and now you're saying they can't vote because their opinions weren't good enough? What? You're saying they failed in a requirement that didn't even exist.
So what is it? Am I not good enough at UU yet to have an opinion? Just because some of the council and maybe 10 or 20 max other players (I say max because not even 20 voted do not ban) disagreed with one decision doesn't mean torpedo the system you outlined, it means it's possible that you just got fairly outvoted and people thoughtfully and legitimately actually disagreed with you. Is that so hard to believe?
Instead, the council decided to directly contradict the tiering they outlined last year for UU, for the sake of having a "better tier." I voted to ban Mega Latias and I still think that was a right decision. So why don't you explain to me why my opinion was wrong and why that means people like me should have even less influence than we already do?
Except this isn't possible, because you don't even know my opinion on why Mega Latias should be banned since I only posted once and never put my full opinion out. It was never a requirement that voters post their opinion and now you're saying they can't vote because their opinions weren't good enough? What? You're saying they failed in a requirement that didn't even exist.
So what is it? Am I not good enough at UU yet to have an opinion? Just because some of the council and maybe 10 or 20 max other players (I say max because not even 20 voted do not ban) disagreed with one decision doesn't mean torpedo the system you outlined, it means it's possible that you just got fairly outvoted and people thoughtfully and legitimately actually disagreed with you. Is that so hard to believe?
In an effort to not derail the thread any further, I'll talk about my opinion on the suspects
As someone that plays bulkier playstyles more often than not, I find offensive Azu sets to be severely daunting when in the teambuilding process. The counterplay is pretty much forcing you to run Amoonguss on these squads to repeatedly check it or win 50/50s with its STABs/Knock Off. Pair that with offensive and defensive typing, STAB priority, and 100/80/80 defenses w/ no weaknesses to common priority itself, and its bound to get at least1 kill every game against every type of playstyle - not just bulkier ones. That's just talking about the CB set though, as the BD and Sap Sipper sets also have their merit of course on offense and bulkier squads respectively. I also think the loss of Rotom-W has a lot to do w/ the unhealthiness of Azu as well, as it was by far one of the best checks beside Amoonguss to stop every kind of offensive set. But yeah overall, I would def lean towards banning it.
As for Serp, I don't have much of an opinion on it. Definitely an annoyance, but way easier to account for than azu with the likes of Altaria, Crobat, Toge, A-Muk, etc.. Fine with keeping it but also fine if its banned - if this was a public test i would probably abstain
As someone that plays bulkier playstyles more often than not, I find offensive Azu sets to be severely daunting when in the teambuilding process. The counterplay is pretty much forcing you to run Amoonguss on these squads to repeatedly check it or win 50/50s with its STABs/Knock Off. Pair that with offensive and defensive typing, STAB priority, and 100/80/80 defenses w/ no weaknesses to common priority itself, and its bound to get at least1 kill every game against every type of playstyle - not just bulkier ones. That's just talking about the CB set though, as the BD and Sap Sipper sets also have their merit of course on offense and bulkier squads respectively. I also think the loss of Rotom-W has a lot to do w/ the unhealthiness of Azu as well, as it was by far one of the best checks beside Amoonguss to stop every kind of offensive set. But yeah overall, I would def lean towards banning it.
As for Serp, I don't have much of an opinion on it. Definitely an annoyance, but way easier to account for than azu with the likes of Altaria, Crobat, Toge, A-Muk, etc.. Fine with keeping it but also fine if its banned - if this was a public test i would probably abstain
Last edited:
Considering that you already seem convinced that we're just a bunch of elitists, let me make it even worse. Yes, the difference between "the top 20%"and "the top 5%" is actually quite important. I'd also like to point out that quite a few of the voters dont hesitate to make multiple alts to get reqs and from there it simply means that despite the fact that they arent good enough to get reqs the normal way, they were able to vote simply because they had a lot of time on their hands. Many of the pro ban posts suggested a severe lack of understanding of the metagame which leads me to think that this system wasn't as good at measuring peoples skills as you seem to believe. The leaders of the tier agreed which is why they would like to implement a system that would be challenging enough to measure skills and not the amount of free time that players have. The top 20% argument doesnt make much sense when you realize that it was possible for players that have a mediocre understanding of the metagame to have an actual impact on the future of the tier.
It seems quite obvious that you have taken this decision personally. You obviously have the right to be offended but you have to understand that not everyone who voted (and posted in the thread) had the same level of understanding of the metagame as you do. As it has been said several times, the decision of changing the system wasn't only about the mega latias ban which you seem to be focusing on, it simply confirmed what the leaders had already been thinking for a while: the requirements were far from being selective enough. You're by all means free to consider that the council simply cant take that the majority disagreed with their opinion but believe it or not we're looking at the bigger picture here. Our goal is to make the metagame as healthy and competitive as possible and it appears that it probably wont be possible if we keep on allowing players that we deem not qualified enough to have an impact on important decisions.
This actually answered the concerns voiced in both posts, reading these two posts made me doubt whether hoggs post was fully read and understood.
Honestly, I'm fine with the council making decisions on behalf of UU. It's a lot faster and less tedious than a suspect test. But having said that, I feel that council votes should also be held to some degree of quality assurance.
Perhaps having council members be required to hit 85% GXE or reach at least top 15 on ladder before each voting period, would provide the public with a level of guarantee that they are sufficiently well-versed in the current metagame, as well as being serious and committed to their responsibilities.
I don't doubt their competence, but some council members have been laddering so infrequently, I feel that their understanding of the current metagame remains somewhat questionable.
Perhaps having council members be required to hit 85% GXE or reach at least top 15 on ladder before each voting period, would provide the public with a level of guarantee that they are sufficiently well-versed in the current metagame, as well as being serious and committed to their responsibilities.
I don't doubt their competence, but some council members have been laddering so infrequently, I feel that their understanding of the current metagame remains somewhat questionable.
I think this is kind of unfair considering a fair few of them are also playing in SPL and, rightly so, their priorities are towards building for that and helping their teammates as best they can. This will happen with other tournaments throughout the season. Also how would you uphold the GXE req? Would they make a new alt each time because while I’m not on council, I’m sure that’s not a realistic possibility for the reasons I mentioned above. We want to keep top players engaged with the tier, not drive them away and I feel something like this has the potential to do the latter.
In general, I didn’t mean to trigger the last page of posts with mine, I just wanted an answer to the question I asked and I’m actually quite happy with that answer. Even if I don’t accept that the public system is as flawed as it’s made out to be I’m glad there is an ongoing consideration towards reaching the best solution for everyone. Hogg is completely right about producing the best tier being the most important factor here, even if it is subjective I would much rather play a fun and balanced metagame and not be able to vote than the other way round.
Perhaps a GXE threshold would be unreasonable, but top 15 or 20 doesn't seem too long or difficult of a task. Considering the fact that decay only drops you down as far as 1500 and all council members being highly competent players themselves.
It just shows a degree of commitment to their responsibilities and would provide a level of confidence and assurance to members of the community, especially when they are shouldered with such a huge responsibility. A few hours of laddering doesn't take away from their commitments to existing tournaments.
Last edited:
I've read with attention all the messages about the problem of "Public Suspect Test". While I agree that there is for sure several voters which probably don't know enough the UU metagame and get reqs just because someone paste them a good team to easily get them, I trully think that "Public Suspect Test" are required because it allows some players, like me, like pif etc... Which actually like UU, who like being involved in it, to give our opinion otherwise than by words.
The UU council is needed for the health of UU, that a fact.. but the tier also needs its community because without it, it doesn't exist. "Public Suspect Test" is a good way to give a voice to all the good UU players (even if there is also people which don't care about UU and just want to get reqs..). I agree that it's really hard to find a good solution to this problem, maybe doing a list of players witch are active and often contribute in the UU threads ?
Btw, I would like to thanks all the people which are involved in one way or another and which contribute to the development of UU.
The UU council is needed for the health of UU, that a fact.. but the tier also needs its community because without it, it doesn't exist. "Public Suspect Test" is a good way to give a voice to all the good UU players (even if there is also people which don't care about UU and just want to get reqs..). I agree that it's really hard to find a good solution to this problem, maybe doing a list of players witch are active and often contribute in the UU threads ?
Btw, I would like to thanks all the people which are involved in one way or another and which contribute to the development of UU.
While I don't agree with most people complaining about this as I think that the council knows this better that anyone and their goal is making the metagame as healthy and competitive as they can, I have to say that Moute and pif are 300% right. If you don't want several people which probably don't know enough the UU metagame and get reqs because someone gave them a good team you can follow what others councils have done (and I know that you said that you are looking forward a new method). For example, the RU council during ORAS made two suspect test where you have to reach 2900 reqs twice, I mean there were two laddering process. In the end, only like 15 people managed to vote, so it was a good suspect in my opinion, as only players that were really interest in the tier voted. So, I think that something like that can happen here, and in that way the council doesn't have to read people complaining, and in the end few people will vote, but this process is very long, so that is a problem.
I have seen a lot of suspect test where the arguments are not based in something solid. You can agree or disagree with someone but saying "X mon is not broken because I can revenge kill it" is a bad argument, and that's it man, then you cannot say that a council member does not respect your opinion. I remember those kind of argument during Xurkitree suspect test, where the no-ban arguments where based on sacking mons to it...
What I am trying to say is: The council is not a group of PU players, they play and know UnderUsed probably more that anyone, but there are people that also know this tier, that also care about it, because we spend time playing this game, and they should be able to vote if they really show that they care about UU development.
Btw, as pif said, nobody has the truth in his hand; if Mega Latias, Xurkitree and others were banned is because some people truly believe that they were unhealthy for the metagame.
I have seen a lot of suspect test where the arguments are not based in something solid. You can agree or disagree with someone but saying "X mon is not broken because I can revenge kill it" is a bad argument, and that's it man, then you cannot say that a council member does not respect your opinion. I remember those kind of argument during Xurkitree suspect test, where the no-ban arguments where based on sacking mons to it...
What I am trying to say is: The council is not a group of PU players, they play and know UnderUsed probably more that anyone, but there are people that also know this tier, that also care about it, because we spend time playing this game, and they should be able to vote if they really show that they care about UU development.
Btw, as pif said, nobody has the truth in his hand; if Mega Latias, Xurkitree and others were banned is because some people truly believe that they were unhealthy for the metagame.
Well, since it's pretty painfully obvious that the thread is one or two posts away from being unsalvageable, I'll try to leave my brief thoughts on Azu/Serperior here:
I really don't feel like either of them is too overbearing to prepare for. With a few of the recent tier shifts, particularly with the rise of two very notable threats in Stakataka and Alolan Marowak, the speed tier Serperior reaches - in addition to its lack of immediate power until it gets its Leaf Storm boost - plays against it. Faster Choice Scarf users can still pick off weakened Serperiors even if they've set up. As for Azumarill, it has to either forego some immediate power and coveted bulk or it has to forego a better speed stat. Things that Azu cannot OHKO with Aqua Jet from a comfortable margin, which aren't particularly uncommon in the tier though they'll still take a real beating, are generally able to beat it that same turn. Both are relatively annoying to play around, especially when predicting around them, but I don't think Serperior or Azumarill are really too overwhelming for the tier at the moment. Serperior is definitely the more irritating one though, since it's almost always able to get some level of chip damage while still boosting up, but even then I don't think it's absolutely banworthy.
Anyway, there's my very brief two cents. You don't have to agree with me. Given the way this thread degenerated chances are people won't agree with me, either.
I really don't feel like either of them is too overbearing to prepare for. With a few of the recent tier shifts, particularly with the rise of two very notable threats in Stakataka and Alolan Marowak, the speed tier Serperior reaches - in addition to its lack of immediate power until it gets its Leaf Storm boost - plays against it. Faster Choice Scarf users can still pick off weakened Serperiors even if they've set up. As for Azumarill, it has to either forego some immediate power and coveted bulk or it has to forego a better speed stat. Things that Azu cannot OHKO with Aqua Jet from a comfortable margin, which aren't particularly uncommon in the tier though they'll still take a real beating, are generally able to beat it that same turn. Both are relatively annoying to play around, especially when predicting around them, but I don't think Serperior or Azumarill are really too overwhelming for the tier at the moment. Serperior is definitely the more irritating one though, since it's almost always able to get some level of chip damage while still boosting up, but even then I don't think it's absolutely banworthy.
Anyway, there's my very brief two cents. You don't have to agree with me. Given the way this thread degenerated chances are people won't agree with me, either.
A lot of players just dont have the opportunity to face the top players , like you said , ppl most of the time only play in the trash ladder and cant really improve and have a good knowledge of the meta.
I know it is surely difficult to organise tournament but if we increase the frequency of individual tournaments like Seasonal tournament ( double elimination ) + more round robin tour like uu majors Last year , a significant group of uu.players will.have the opportunity to face the top. There is a huge gap between the top and the rest and a few is done to shrink it . Team tours are cool and show the.best of uu meta but they dont give the opportunity to most of ppl to play.
We cant complain about the quality of the playerbase if we dont let it more opportunity to shine .
That's why we have done some improvements to the circuit and we'll be having tours on a more regular basis. It's not a problem with simple solutions, but we are tackling it from many different areas.
I didn't realise that not playing in tours made you an unknowledgeable player. I mean tours are great, but there really is little incentive for most 'ladder grinders' to play in tours in the first place if you care little about some online badges. If there was a monetary reward, then perhaps, but letting tour players determine the bans is a bit one-sided when the decision affects everyone who 'grinds' on the ladder and not just these supposed 'top' players.
I know there likely isn’t a great way to deliver the info on not using/changing future public suspect tests, but the way it was makes it seem as if the council really wants to have high quality metagame/tour for their own and not for the community. And while I genuinely believe that last sentence to be true to an extent, I hope the council realizes that there is a big community that plays the UU metagame, and within that large group, there are more than just the very small group that is council that are great players that know and care about the meta and contribute positively. Yes for the most part, I have agreed with the decisions of the council throughout USUM, but I do think a bigger voice than just the council is more representative and is needed to help produce the highest quality tier possible.
That was somewhat of a segue into my idea to make a public suspect test that solves the concerns brought up by Hikari and Hogg which were:
· That the results don’t necessarily reflect who play the tier at the highest levels
· You don't need to know the tier, you don't need to care about it
· Ladder doesn’t reflect the actual tier (as hikari said, 100 games in ladder you face 50 Ambipom 20 bad stall , 20 bullshit balance)
· large number of complaints we received at how long the process took
The idea is quite simply a voting privilege based on some form of requirements (Just for example, say like 85 GXE on an alt that you can prove is yours + in Smogon organized UU tournaments, you can attribute points to the round passed in a given tournament and set a threshold to cross + reaching a certain amount of likes total in the UU subforum to show they contribute) plus those that have earned that voting requirement have to earn reqs still for every suspect test to vote. You can change the voting requirement to whatever, but I think creating a baseline for someone that should be a good player, knowledgeable at high level of play, and who cares for the community, is a good idea. Those that meet the requirement can help in decision making processes of the tier (assuming they achieve reqs on a given suspect test), and those that have not earned the voting requirement can work to improve themselves to get there. Just an idea that I thought I would share to potentially solve some of the issues that were brought up. Thoughts?
That was somewhat of a segue into my idea to make a public suspect test that solves the concerns brought up by Hikari and Hogg which were:
· That the results don’t necessarily reflect who play the tier at the highest levels
· You don't need to know the tier, you don't need to care about it
· Ladder doesn’t reflect the actual tier (as hikari said, 100 games in ladder you face 50 Ambipom 20 bad stall , 20 bullshit balance)
· large number of complaints we received at how long the process took
The idea is quite simply a voting privilege based on some form of requirements (Just for example, say like 85 GXE on an alt that you can prove is yours + in Smogon organized UU tournaments, you can attribute points to the round passed in a given tournament and set a threshold to cross + reaching a certain amount of likes total in the UU subforum to show they contribute) plus those that have earned that voting requirement have to earn reqs still for every suspect test to vote. You can change the voting requirement to whatever, but I think creating a baseline for someone that should be a good player, knowledgeable at high level of play, and who cares for the community, is a good idea. Those that meet the requirement can help in decision making processes of the tier (assuming they achieve reqs on a given suspect test), and those that have not earned the voting requirement can work to improve themselves to get there. Just an idea that I thought I would share to potentially solve some of the issues that were brought up. Thoughts?
I don't see how not sticking to the public suspect for now is not satisfactory right now. I understand if Council Votes are needed to decide on broken things after a Generation shift or tier shifts (i.e. Hoopa-Unbound), but for stuff that's been in the tier for roughly two months already. I understand council votes on stuff like Alolan Ninetales, but suspect tests should be fine for Pokemon like Azumarill and Serperior. To design a public system of tiering is to acknowledge the innate flaws a public voting system has (even with GXE-COIL requirements). There will always be information bias, and people will listen to those that they relate to more. Members that post more in the NP threads that facilitate discussion here like pokeisfun will have a greater influence than either you or Hogg, both of which post infrequently. Strong leadership that wants the public to agree with their views focuses on engaging with their members more.
TL;DR: The current method of extra restrictions by GXE and game limit is probably the most optimal suspect method right now (even with your concerns on stall). The only other way to address your concern of "incorrect" opinions circulating amongst suspect voters is to increase engagement with these people and members in general.
I have already posted my opinion on changing the suspect process, so now i will give my veiw of azumarill and serperior. I think azumarill should stay, while serperior should be banned. Each one of serperior's sets has very few switch ins, and there is not one switch in that reliably checks every one of its sets. Alola muk and blissey fear leech seed. Scarf latias, infernape, and hydreigon fear glare. The whole meta fears z hyper beam. Plus, it is very difficult to scout serperior's set due to it's immense power after just one leaf storm. Here is one my games that shows how overbearing serperior is: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-681412883
In this game, serperior got 3 good opportunities to come in, and it either crippled the opposing team or got a kill every time, setting mega altaria up for an easy sweep late game. The first time it came in was against after my opponent's azumarill knocked out magneton. I sub leeched the opposing alolamuk, so he switched to serperior. I crippled the opposing serperior with glare. The second time my serperior came in was off a u-turn on the opposing gliscor. My opponent switched out to his serperior, and I was easily able to knock it out due to crippling it with glare earlier. The third time my serperior came in was after my opponent's azumarill knocked out my scizor. This time, my opponent just let me knock out his azumarill, thinking that I might sub on his alolamuk.
Overall, serperior got 2 kills and chipped alolamuk down to less than half. This allowed mega altaria to easliy sweep, since serperior killed / damaged azumarill and alolamuk, were his only two answers to mega altaria. Serperior was clearly overbearing in this game.
Another good replay that showed how overbearing serperior is the one that pokemonisfun posted: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-678714571
I thought this is an excellent replay that shows how much pressure serperior puts on opposing teams, and is a great replay to discuss when arguing pro-ban.
P.S. I see that Geeezer's post about uu being fascist (lol) and having to be a fluent writer got deleted. While I do agree his post was a little inappropriate, I dont think people's posts should get deleted. The community should be able to handle angry posts, as long as they aren't spamming the forum excessively.
In this game, serperior got 3 good opportunities to come in, and it either crippled the opposing team or got a kill every time, setting mega altaria up for an easy sweep late game. The first time it came in was against after my opponent's azumarill knocked out magneton. I sub leeched the opposing alolamuk, so he switched to serperior. I crippled the opposing serperior with glare. The second time my serperior came in was off a u-turn on the opposing gliscor. My opponent switched out to his serperior, and I was easily able to knock it out due to crippling it with glare earlier. The third time my serperior came in was after my opponent's azumarill knocked out my scizor. This time, my opponent just let me knock out his azumarill, thinking that I might sub on his alolamuk.
Overall, serperior got 2 kills and chipped alolamuk down to less than half. This allowed mega altaria to easliy sweep, since serperior killed / damaged azumarill and alolamuk, were his only two answers to mega altaria. Serperior was clearly overbearing in this game.
Another good replay that showed how overbearing serperior is the one that pokemonisfun posted: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-678714571
I thought this is an excellent replay that shows how much pressure serperior puts on opposing teams, and is a great replay to discuss when arguing pro-ban.
P.S. I see that Geeezer's post about uu being fascist (lol) and having to be a fluent writer got deleted. While I do agree his post was a little inappropriate, I dont think people's posts should get deleted. The community should be able to handle angry posts, as long as they aren't spamming the forum excessively.
I suppose the whole drama around the voting process changes is fading and we're actually getting on with actual discussion, so here I go. Disclaimer: I can already tell that I presented this in a somewhat sloppy and unorganized manner, apologies as I johned writing anything here until midnight. Apologies in advance.
I can't really ignore this because the reasoning kinda irks me. First off, I just wanted to point out that there's a lot wrong with this replay here. This hardly shows how overbearing Serp can be in a proper setting. For one, the team your opponent is using is a team pif himself posted in the sample team thread here. If you were unaware of the actual situation, he admits to building this team as a counterteam to the stall bugzinator was running while they were fighting for #1 on ladder. If you asked him yourself I'm sure he wouldn't hesitate to say its a flawed team otherwise (the lack of decent MAero answers on a Bulky Offense team tends to give it away) . Turn 11 you coulda U-turned to Altaria on the Gliscor and the game had a good change of being over there since Muk was dead to +1 Return and Azu obviously didn't want to switch right in or else it would just end up getting itself in range of +1 Return if you attacked, basically sealing the game (so every time Altaria came in vs Serp/Gliscor it came down to a 50/50, which it seems you woulda won and is even more in your favor since Azumarill continually takes Stealth Rock damage, since his chosen course of action was to Toxic Altaria even though it getting to +2 meant the game was over). I suppose you caught him off guard with that joke of a Serperior set and his ended up going down after only 1 Leaf Storm on Infernape. You did have Serp covered pretty well between Altaria and Infernape so I don't suppose it would really do much even if it did get a hit off vs your own. If anything, this replay is just a reminder that you should probably have a Fairy resist on Gen 7 UU teams.
If it wasn't clear to anyone that bothered reading this, I myself am pretty anti-ban for Serperior, and Azumarill by that stretch as well (despite not having any real influence over it xd). Most of the arguments against keeping them sound like a run-of-the-mill description of an S-Rank Pokemon in any given tier (even though I do think Azumarill isn't exactly deserving of its current rank at the top of UU VRs anyway). Yeah, they're gonna be able to run different sets that pressure the other sets' checks and counters, yeah they're gonna be tougher to play around than the rest of the mons in the tier. They have a toolset that puts them above the other mons and as such end up performing their job much more reliably. All of the sets between the two of them have viable counterplay that shouldn't be hard to fit on properly built teams. Offense teams that have thin resists for Azumarill should be able to limit its switchin opportunities and constantly be able to pressure it. This can easily be said about every threatening mon to offense. Stuff like Nihilego, Scizor, Mega Aerodactyl and Latias all pose a similar threat but aren't impossible to handle if you have a gameplan for them (though holy shit I think we should maybe take a look at Scizor, bordering 40% usage just on ladder and making Magneton viable in this meta is insane for a UU mon, even if this is a story for a different day). If you think Azu is broken, maybe don't slap on a Scarf Hydreigon for revenge killing next time you're four frail setup mons deep into a hyper offensive team. The same goes for balance teams that can have a tough time taking it on, though it can be a little tougher for them since 100% safe defensive counterplay for Azumarill is pretty rare, which I'll admit. I will also admit that scouting an unrevealed Azu set early on in a game can be a pretty difficult since it can basically go in one of three directions that will change your gameplan depending on what it turns out to be. The same can be said for Gliscor, though Azu tends to be more immediately threatening rather than nigh impossible to kill. Serperior in my opinion is much more straightforward than Azu since safe defensive counterplay to it is much more common with stuff like Amoonguss (that can't get baited by any Serp set like it could by Perish Trap Azu), Crobat, Mega Altaria, Blissey (run Skill Swap and Subseed Serp or Vincune will never beat your stalls again), Sap Sipper Azu (irony), Togekiss, Kyurem, Latias, Muk, Chandelure I guess even though I wil never understand what godforsaken reason Scarf has become popular, and a plethora of viable revenge killers like Infernape, Mega Aero and Mega Beedrill that can keep it under control for multiple playstyles. Maybe it's just me since I've played a few more Curse + Earthquake Snorlax in GSC compared to the average UUer, but I really think that it's not so impossible to have a solid gameplan against good mons even when you don't pack any super hard counters to them. TLDR: Azumarill and Serp bring a lot of good stuff to a team both offensively and defensively, but at the end of the day its just good mons with good toolkits for UU. Yes they will constrain the meta and teambuilding a bit, but so does literally every mon that's ever been S-Rank. There's plenty of perfectly viable counterplay to both of them that you don't have to go out of your way to use, even if they're good enough to be driving forces in the shaping of the UU metagame. Get a little creative, we don't have to check half the metagame with Klefki Twave anymore.
I can't really ignore this because the reasoning kinda irks me. First off, I just wanted to point out that there's a lot wrong with this replay here. This hardly shows how overbearing Serp can be in a proper setting. For one, the team your opponent is using is a team pif himself posted in the sample team thread here. If you were unaware of the actual situation, he admits to building this team as a counterteam to the stall bugzinator was running while they were fighting for #1 on ladder. If you asked him yourself I'm sure he wouldn't hesitate to say its a flawed team otherwise (the lack of decent MAero answers on a Bulky Offense team tends to give it away) . Turn 11 you coulda U-turned to Altaria on the Gliscor and the game had a good change of being over there since Muk was dead to +1 Return and Azu obviously didn't want to switch right in or else it would just end up getting itself in range of +1 Return if you attacked, basically sealing the game (so every time Altaria came in vs Serp/Gliscor it came down to a 50/50, which it seems you woulda won and is even more in your favor since Azumarill continually takes Stealth Rock damage, since his chosen course of action was to Toxic Altaria even though it getting to +2 meant the game was over). I suppose you caught him off guard with that joke of a Serperior set and his ended up going down after only 1 Leaf Storm on Infernape. You did have Serp covered pretty well between Altaria and Infernape so I don't suppose it would really do much even if it did get a hit off vs your own. If anything, this replay is just a reminder that you should probably have a Fairy resist on Gen 7 UU teams.
If it wasn't clear to anyone that bothered reading this, I myself am pretty anti-ban for Serperior, and Azumarill by that stretch as well (despite not having any real influence over it xd). Most of the arguments against keeping them sound like a run-of-the-mill description of an S-Rank Pokemon in any given tier (even though I do think Azumarill isn't exactly deserving of its current rank at the top of UU VRs anyway). Yeah, they're gonna be able to run different sets that pressure the other sets' checks and counters, yeah they're gonna be tougher to play around than the rest of the mons in the tier. They have a toolset that puts them above the other mons and as such end up performing their job much more reliably. All of the sets between the two of them have viable counterplay that shouldn't be hard to fit on properly built teams. Offense teams that have thin resists for Azumarill should be able to limit its switchin opportunities and constantly be able to pressure it. This can easily be said about every threatening mon to offense. Stuff like Nihilego, Scizor, Mega Aerodactyl and Latias all pose a similar threat but aren't impossible to handle if you have a gameplan for them (though holy shit I think we should maybe take a look at Scizor, bordering 40% usage just on ladder and making Magneton viable in this meta is insane for a UU mon, even if this is a story for a different day). If you think Azu is broken, maybe don't slap on a Scarf Hydreigon for revenge killing next time you're four frail setup mons deep into a hyper offensive team. The same goes for balance teams that can have a tough time taking it on, though it can be a little tougher for them since 100% safe defensive counterplay for Azumarill is pretty rare, which I'll admit. I will also admit that scouting an unrevealed Azu set early on in a game can be a pretty difficult since it can basically go in one of three directions that will change your gameplan depending on what it turns out to be. The same can be said for Gliscor, though Azu tends to be more immediately threatening rather than nigh impossible to kill. Serperior in my opinion is much more straightforward than Azu since safe defensive counterplay to it is much more common with stuff like Amoonguss (that can't get baited by any Serp set like it could by Perish Trap Azu), Crobat, Mega Altaria, Blissey (run Skill Swap and Subseed Serp or Vincune will never beat your stalls again), Sap Sipper Azu (irony), Togekiss, Kyurem, Latias, Muk, Chandelure I guess even though I wil never understand what godforsaken reason Scarf has become popular, and a plethora of viable revenge killers like Infernape, Mega Aero and Mega Beedrill that can keep it under control for multiple playstyles. Maybe it's just me since I've played a few more Curse + Earthquake Snorlax in GSC compared to the average UUer, but I really think that it's not so impossible to have a solid gameplan against good mons even when you don't pack any super hard counters to them. TLDR: Azumarill and Serp bring a lot of good stuff to a team both offensively and defensively, but at the end of the day its just good mons with good toolkits for UU. Yes they will constrain the meta and teambuilding a bit, but so does literally every mon that's ever been S-Rank. There's plenty of perfectly viable counterplay to both of them that you don't have to go out of your way to use, even if they're good enough to be driving forces in the shaping of the UU metagame. Get a little creative, we don't have to check half the metagame with Klefki Twave anymore.
- Status