pokemonisfun
Banned deucer.
A few of my friends asked me what I posted on the survey so...
I don't put too much thought into this question as I always enjoy playing Pokemon (it is a game!). But I put it as an 8 last time and I like it more than when I last answered (right before we suspected Goltres). So I'd put it back up one more to a 9.
More substantively, I find the tier competitive because I can quite comfortably use teams that beat most of the metagame without having more than 1 major weakness AND still have variety.
Another thing, I don't feel this tier is too MU based - that is, I don't think you often have a significant advantage in the match up. There are a few Pokemon like REGISTEEL that I think are massively underrated and can (and have) crushed top tournament teams on preview. But it has also flopped plenty of times too. People who see say "see Registeel is bad" when it does not sweep, I think fundamentally misunderstand it though - it still provides defensive support through the game (stopping Nihilego or Scizor from sweeping for example).
Defensiveness is what sets it apart from the fishiness of Regidrago for example, which can crush in tournament games like my PSPL win here but Drago completely flops into most Fairies and doesn't provide consistent value like Registeel does.
My main point though, is that even though I find Registeel to be excellent and emblematic of SS UU fishing problems, the simple fact is players have basically relegated to a mid tier threat (never crossed into A- on viability). The metagame has developed in such a way that fishing isn't as common anymore, there is much less hyper offense now in UUSD for example (I hardly remember any).
I believe this is simply a conscious choice though that can change and I do believe in a "meta"game - meta means our game strategy is dynamic. If I was confident that the lack fishiness resulted from the "natural" evolution of the metagame, I'd probably be torn between putting a 9 or 10 on this survey.
But because I believe we could very quickly go back to HO fishing / Registeel fishing / Rain/Trick Room to meme on other offenses, I am more torn between 8 and 9 on this answer and am going to put an 8 (still 1 higher than what I had last time).
None of these three choices really reflect my opinion actually which is this: I think Scizor should be suspected tested but I am pretty certain I would vote do not ban. So I made the vote that would still, I am guessing, help lead to a suspect test.
Why have a suspect test for something I think isn't banworthy? Three reasons:
To be blunt, I regret voting ban on Goltres.
I know I wrote above that I don't think we should test UUBL until we come to the consensus the tier is balanced, so I don't think we should retest this Goltres thing unless like nobody wants to test anything else in UU.
But a couple reasons stick out to me as Goltres shouldn't have been banned
Everything else, well, I'm fine with testing them tbh but ONLY after we decide UU is balanced. I don't think we're there yet.
I let my last answer kind of write itself.
I don't put too much thought into this question as I always enjoy playing Pokemon (it is a game!). But I put it as an 8 last time and I like it more than when I last answered (right before we suspected Goltres). So I'd put it back up one more to a 9.
More substantively, I find the tier competitive because I can quite comfortably use teams that beat most of the metagame without having more than 1 major weakness AND still have variety.
Another thing, I don't feel this tier is too MU based - that is, I don't think you often have a significant advantage in the match up. There are a few Pokemon like REGISTEEL that I think are massively underrated and can (and have) crushed top tournament teams on preview. But it has also flopped plenty of times too. People who see say "see Registeel is bad" when it does not sweep, I think fundamentally misunderstand it though - it still provides defensive support through the game (stopping Nihilego or Scizor from sweeping for example).
Defensiveness is what sets it apart from the fishiness of Regidrago for example, which can crush in tournament games like my PSPL win here but Drago completely flops into most Fairies and doesn't provide consistent value like Registeel does.
My main point though, is that even though I find Registeel to be excellent and emblematic of SS UU fishing problems, the simple fact is players have basically relegated to a mid tier threat (never crossed into A- on viability). The metagame has developed in such a way that fishing isn't as common anymore, there is much less hyper offense now in UUSD for example (I hardly remember any).
I believe this is simply a conscious choice though that can change and I do believe in a "meta"game - meta means our game strategy is dynamic. If I was confident that the lack fishiness resulted from the "natural" evolution of the metagame, I'd probably be torn between putting a 9 or 10 on this survey.
But because I believe we could very quickly go back to HO fishing / Registeel fishing / Rain/Trick Room to meme on other offenses, I am more torn between 8 and 9 on this answer and am going to put an 8 (still 1 higher than what I had last time).
None of these three choices really reflect my opinion actually which is this: I think Scizor should be suspected tested but I am pretty certain I would vote do not ban. So I made the vote that would still, I am guessing, help lead to a suspect test.
Why have a suspect test for something I think isn't banworthy? Three reasons:
- I am aware many of my fellow UU players think Scizor is banworthy because it is broken. I want to give them a shot to ban it. If it's not broken (and I don't think it is because we have so many natural checks/counters right now), then I trust people will set prejudices aside and vote do not ban.
- As noted above, I am pretty satisfied with the competitiveness of the metagame right now although I do think it's a bit artificial and can swing back any moment. I'd be more interested in retesting UUBL if I thought we were at a truly competitive metagame. But I'd prefer to keep suspecting things currently in UU until we as a community come to the consensus the metagame is balanced.
- While I do appreciate my fellow community members opinions as noted in 1., I only would think something deserves a suspect if you could feasibly make an argument that it is broken (or uncompetitive). I don't buy that Scizor is broken because the sheer number of checks/counters/amount of counterplay it has but I still think it's the best mon in the tier (better than Salamence and Cobalion which some others think are the top mon now) because it both has longevity and sweeping potential. The counterplay it does have is extremely abusable (Skarmory is abusable since it usually only runs Body Press to attack) and the other counters like Salamence, Moltres, Rotom-H detest Knock Off.
- So while I don't think Scizor is broken, I think it feasibly could be argued to be broken.
To be blunt, I regret voting ban on Goltres.
I know I wrote above that I don't think we should test UUBL until we come to the consensus the tier is balanced, so I don't think we should retest this Goltres thing unless like nobody wants to test anything else in UU.
But a couple reasons stick out to me as Goltres shouldn't have been banned
- First of all, why are we okay with Celesteela but not Goltres? Celesteela has a much more broken ability in my view and really the only much bigger issue it has is the inability to flinch down Nihilego nearly as easily since it resists Air Slash. The other issue is Celesteela is slower than Scarf Hydreigon but there are so many benefits of Celesteela like more resistances, Toxic immunity (Hippo), better coverage.
- Personally, I think we just accept some losses to Celesteela as hax because luck is part of the game and I think we should have accepted that from Goltres
- We banned Goltres when people were unsatisfied with the meta (because Aegislash existed) and I think we wanted to take action on **SOMETHING** so we killed the bird. But it wasn't the bird that was broken, maybe it was uncompetitive, but it was clearly Aegislash the one that was broken (Goltres was like A or A- rank, Aegi was consistently S rank), we just couldn't ban Aegislash because it literally was just tested.
Everything else, well, I'm fine with testing them tbh but ONLY after we decide UU is balanced. I don't think we're there yet.
I let my last answer kind of write itself.