Anybody accusing me of making assumptions is being very hypocritical, considering none of you have talked to me to hear my personal arguments and responses to yours. This entire argument is misjudged and people are twisting it, which is creating a lot of animosity on both sides. Just don't keep taking little peices of my argument and acting like the whole thing is wrong because you made an incorrect assumption about it please, its starting to piss me off, and if I get angry this thread will probably get locked. Just a fair warning.
Since the Diggersby ban we have banned in immediate succession: Mega Aerodactyl, Greninja, and Kyurem-Black. The first question asked is this: Did Diggersby cause these mons to be banned, directly or indirectly? Well the answer is yes for all 3. Greninja was directly checked by Diggersby, however that really isn't very relevant. Mega Aerodactyl is actually used as a diggersby check on offense. So why would Diggersby, a peice of its viability in the first place, cause it to be banned?
Something that got viability supposedly taken away with the Diggersby ban was quickly proved to be broken as well. Basically, in the post-diggersby metagame, Mega Aerodactyl got MORE effective, despite one of its major uses being eliminated. The simple fact is that Diggersby didn't restrict teams, it restricted the meta. Diggersby's presence actually made it EASIER to teambuild. Having the ability to slap one mon on all your teams that blanket checks 85% of the entire metagame meant it was much easier to check selective threats, such as mega aerodactyl. Fitting a bulky Landorus-T onto your team was easier. Fitting Weavile or Kyurem-Black or other mons that check Mega Aero onto your team was suddenly a very simple idea, and was not difficult at all. This made these threats less effective than a post-diggersby meta would make them.
Fast forward to the post-Diggersby ban metagame. Now, without a check to 85% of the meta, we have to resort to weaker or less consistent ways to check such threats. Furthermore, they are much less reliable and don't fit on all playstyles, and also lack versatility. The result is more teamslots have to be consumed attempting to blanket check threats Diggersby normally did, which restricted building. Further enhancing the problem, this made the threats that have to be checked specifically - Mega Aerodactyl, Greninja, Mega Scizor, Kyurem-Black, etc. - much harder to check. They no longer fit on teams so easily, and therefore teambuilding became more RESTRICTED, rather than more free, because it took more slots to check threats.
Since teams could no longer run one mon to check 85% of the meta, they had to run more mons or further restrict their team (in the case of ursaring) to check the same portion of the meta, restricting teambuilding.
The Definition of Stabmons banning really did not change with the Diggersby ban. It had been suspected twice, but there was a marked difference in discussion on the third and final suspect test. Many more people had their opinions changed in the time between the second and third susupect, which was the primary cause in the different result of the final suspect. Mega Aerodactyl fit the mold of previous stabmons bans, such as keldeo, in the post-diggersby meta - Checks/Counters were hard to fit on teams. I personally believed Diggersby fit the mold of "required to fit checks onto teams seamlessly, which was difficult," which was the same as the aforementioned Keldeo ban. The other argument surrounding Diggersby was the overcentralization. Nothing like this has ever occured since. Mega Aerodactyl, in the post-diggs ban conditions, but when we had the mindset around the time of the Keldeo ban, would still end up banned. Diggersby did not redefine Stabmons banning, it redefined the metagame, and made things so much harder on builders that other mons ended up overcentralizing the tier.
No, this is not an illogical fallacy, and how you believe it is such is beyond me. I do not believe bans are "bad" necessarily, what I believe is that bans are a "last resort" or sorts. They are what we do when something excessively restricts teambuilding or has so few viable counters that we have no choice to ban it because there is no way to successfully adapt. Bans aren't a bad thing, they just aren't something we do because a threat breaks our team. Adapt first, if it doesn't work, then ban. However,
Kit Kasai, your argument is baseless as well. Saying the argument is based around banning being bad presumes that I oppose banning mons, but I have supported EVERY suspect test done in the post-Diggersby meta, and I wanted all but Kyurem-Black banned, which I was one the fence about anyways. I do support all the bans in this tier, my only point is that this metagame is hard to balance.
Your second reason for it being an illogical fallacy is just as baseless of an assumption. My point wasn't that we are never going to achieve balance, my point is that we may achieve a maximum amount of balance. Personally, the concept of balance isn't a yes or no question as you suggested. The metagame isn't either balanced or unbalanced, but rather, is always balanced to some extent or another. The amount of balance is what makes a tier stable. The problem is that currently, with the way stabmons work, some threats are hard to counter. This is just the nature of the metagame, and we have to deal with it. With the restriction the depth of the tier has, it will be hard to pack counters to everything on teams. Some of you feel this is the way tiers should work, but the Stabmons metagame is different. Because the tier is so deep in viability, it is inherently impossible to viably counter everything in the metagame on one team. Therefore, there will logically always be something very difficult to counter. The best mon is the next man up, and unless it has a lot of counters, it will go as well.
Even though this is a reason, it still is NOT the basis of the slippery slope argument. We don't know if we can achieve balance in this metagame, however there is the chance we can, and we continue to grind away towards it by banning the next man up. The reason I brought this up is because I think the council could finally push their bounds too far, in which case we ban something where its not necessary, and consequently risk losing some of our balance. It was also to sate peoples tempers and make people wait for after OMPL and Eevee's decision to go crazy before people started talking about a mega scizor ban, which apparently will happen, however people decide to blow up the slippery slope argument without any evidence and without knowing the true argument itself.
Now that I've actually backed up this argument I'm done talking about it. As of now, its irrelevant and I don't want to talk about it when it holds no relevance to this suspect. It was merely a footnote that led me to creating a 1205 word post.
