Gen 6 ORAS Ubers Metagame Discussion

[Krauersaut]

While two unique teams and I'm not going to judge your ladder performance. But those two games your opponents did play badly.
Also the reason I ran with that team is because after playing the ubers the metagame for just a day, this team was used in 75% of my matches. Watching matches it was about %60. I decided to test it out and see what the big deal was and the majority of games ended in, who neuturs or get rids of the xerneas/arceus/mega mence check first and sets up wins the game. Sure you can run unique teams vs unique teams but it's quite hard to be creative vs alot of offensive teams.

Edit: and from reading peoples post Stall is pretty much dead in this metagame.

stall is far from dead, and your opponent played significantly worse than pomman's lol.

 

[Funbot28]

So the topic of banning Primal Groudon and Mega Salamence have been brought up again and here is a chat between competent players on PS! (barring myself lol):

Hide

Reqs Funbot28: can we all admit that Mega Mence and P-don are th eonly reason Ubers is not in SPL...
8-bit CPU: n
8-bit CPU: kind of
8-bit CPU: but not rly
dogknees: spl?
Reqs Funbot28: i cant see any other reasoning lol
Lord Outrage ☭: loooool
Lord Outrage ☭: admit alone nig
Lord Outrage ☭: they are not the reason
8-bit CPU: it's the palyers who slammed the tier
Lord Outrage ☭: they are something
Lord Outrage ☭: tds used
Lord Outrage ☭: to kick ubers out
Lord Outrage ☭: ask dice
Lord Outrage ☭: he is frens with ciele
Drangonn: Why is Outrage not voice
Unoko: you mean trout?
8-bit CPU: y
Reqs Funbot28: but I believe there centralization and ominscienty presence theyt have on the tier is what makes people bash ORAS Ubers no?
Lord Outrage ☭: and gay tds
8-bit CPU: omniscient presence? u mean omnipresence rite
Reqs Funbot28: yes sorry
Reqs Funbot28: I feel a suspect wont hurt
@Dice: banning pdon and m-mencesux
Reqs Funbot28: at lest for P_don
@Dice: bad idea af
+Cranham: you just
+Cranham: centralise the meta to kyogre
@Dice: if u wanna do that
+Cranham: also dice
@Dice: u have to rewrite the ideology of ubers
Lord Outrage ☭: play bw2
James Jimmy: Lol, Problems started an avalanche now
Lord Outrage ☭: lol
James Jimmy: Smh
Reqs Funbot28: well then maybe iban both primals
+Cranham: didnt dpp ubers have a 100% usage of kyogre
+Cranham: @ one point
aman indra: chocie specs kyurem-white usable ?
aman indra: choice*
+Cranham: is there like
@Dice: no don't use kyu-w
@Dice: use palkia.
8-bit CPU: ^
@Dice: which also sucks
+Cranham: no reason to not run dialga in dpp
8-bit CPU: but less so
Reqs Funbot28: i dont see the harm in a suspect
+Cranham: b/c of kyogre
Reqs Funbot28: it would proabaly be voted no ban anyways
@Dice: i do
8-bit CPU: suspects set a bad precedent
@Dice: why suspect something
aman indra: on paper kyurem white seems good lol
@Dice: for no reason
@Dice: u are strictly defying the premise ubers was created on
+Cranham: ORAS ubers
+Cranham: is perfectly playable
+Cranham: as it is lol
Reqs Funbot28: this definition has been scewed when mega ray came
aman indra: i think we might get another mon which will go straight to anything goes with sun and moon as well lol
+Cranham: The meta has settled overtime
8-bit CPU: mega ray had good reason
Reqs Funbot28: and now we have a guidline that we can follow
@Dice: mega ray is an anomaly
@Dice: the dichotomy of ubers is first and foremost a banlist
@Dice: and secondly a tier
aman indra: the reason why m-ray got banned is because of that iten slot
@Dice: we shouldn't flip flop the order
Reqs Funbot28: I dont think Chaos agrees with that
@Dice: b/c of the tacit argument that ubers 'isn't fun'
@Dice: i don't think you kno what ur talking about tbh
@Dice: =P
aman indra: ^
Reqs Funbot28: its more that it contradicts SMogons guidelines on centralization and abundancy, but not because its not enjoyable
James Jimmy: Dice, lol. Why do you keep discussing about something that won't be addressed officially?
@Dice: there is a thread about it
@Dice: right now
8-bit CPU: honestly i think it is equal parts tier and banlist
+Cranham: Banning Pdon / Mence doesnt solve those problems
@Dice: i already replied
+Cranham: lol
Reqs Funbot28: PR
James Jimmy: Man
@Dice: and i replied when it was made
Dilwar (): Woman
@Dice: a year ago
James Jimmy: That thread is as old as I am
@Dice: with the same opinion
+PROBLEMS: the only reason
Dilwar (): bs jj u aint 1
James Jimmy: He just bumped it
+PROBLEMS: i written that
Dilwar (): or 1 milennia oo
+PROBLEMS: is because its after now
+PROBLEMS: and its still shit
Reqs Funbot28: agree with problems
Dilwar (): same
+PROBLEMS: none of you want to play with primal groudon
James Jimmy: Facepalm
+PROBLEMS: any good player knows its bull shit
Dilwar (): Plot
Reqs Funbot28: the truth
@Dice: my opinion is: either peddle to the masses that balance ubers should become ou and to revise the tiers accordingly
@Dice: or do nothing
Reqs Funbot28: i mean besides S-Tag, XY was pretty good
+PROBLEMS: plus you can't tell me not using salamence
+PROBLEMS: isnt a good idea
+PROBLEMS: how many games have you sued it and its swept someone
+PROBLEMS: used*
+PROBLEMS: 50% of games
@Dice: i don't think anecdotes are a good measure of power
Reqs Funbot28: but ubers can now view these criterias differently now that there is precedent
@Dice: everyone remembers the games that salamence swept
@Dice: no one remembers when it doesn't sweep
@Dice: hindsight bias af
aman indra: nothing;s getting banned or suspected period lol
+PROBLEMS: i know this
@Dice: if someone could make
@Dice: a statistics thread
+PROBLEMS: i mentioned a ladder
@Dice: from the ubers ssnl logs
+PROBLEMS: just to test it
@Dice: that would be cool
+PROBLEMS: and sweep said he would consider it
+PROBLEMS: but hasn't done anything
aman indra: the only think in ubers i am currently salty about is mega gengar
+PROBLEMS: ignore shadow tag
Reqs Funbot28: vote for another ladder without primals and MMence y/y
aman indra: only because of s-tag
aman indra: nope
@Dice: i just think this idea is opening up a very precarious can of worms
aman indra: ^
@Dice: and it is not grounded in the idea that ubers should be a banlist first
Reqs Funbot28: which has already been open with mega ray
@Dice: it is mostly just 'i don't like this meta'
@Dice: 'pdon sux'
@Dice: which i agree with
aman indra: "fuck primals"
@Dice: but i can't agree with changing the tier based on that
@Dice: it is why i just play different ones.
+PROBLEMS: how to win games; use a salamence paired with a set up arceus, use a gengar to trap xern counters and groudon switch ins
+PROBLEMS: <
Reqs Funbot28: basically
aman indra: arc ground dies to grass knot ?
+PROBLEMS: you don't need to play any differently
+PROBLEMS: why would i use creative teams
+PROBLEMS: lmao
Reqs Funbot28: the risk/reward is totally unfair
aman indra: i am having great fun playing anything goes currently :p
+PROBLEMS: its been 1 year
+PROBLEMS: and you can use the teams from last year
Reqs Funbot28: we should really adress this before S&M
aman indra: the thing is this discussion leads to no changes despite arguments
+PROBLEMS: theres no change
+PROBLEMS: to anything
@Dice: there's only 3 reasons why the same teams would work
@Dice: 1) playerbase sux and can't innovate 2) no incentive to innovate 3) metagame is progressed to a point where there isn't much innovation to be had
aman indra: and why would you get primals banned and m-sala suspected when ubers is supposed to contain op mons from other tiers ?
@Dice: it's prob an amalgam of the three
+PROBLEMS: player base sucks because theres no reason to compete
+PROBLEMS: with spl being gone
@Dice: that'd be #2
+PROBLEMS: why has everyone left
@Dice: and #1
+PROBLEMS: think to yourself
RyeRaiChu: dilwar, wanna do some haxballing practice?
Reqs Funbot28: and because p-don just invalidates creativity
antacool number2: wrong
aman indra: lol
aman indra: ^
antacool number2: :]
@soviet: probs
Better Strangers: so are they gonna ban groudon
@soviet: i'll become tier leader just for u
aman indra: nope
@soviet: and ban both msala and pdon
Better Strangers: they are discussing it
Lord Outrage ☭: f soviet
@soviet: f trout
+PROBLEMS: give me tier leader
+PROBLEMS: jk
+Cranham: the problem is the players
+Cranham: arent creative lol
antacool number2: uh
antacool number2: ... but why?
RyeRaiChu: meep
+Cranham: so it just leads to linear teambuilds
+PROBLEMS: 3) metagame is progressed to a point where there isn't much innovation to be had
+PROBLEMS: dice
+PROBLEMS: this is what I've been arging
Dilwar (): f ubers
+PROBLEMS: because two pokemon re preventing a tier from moving forward
+PROBLEMS: I've played ubers since like 2011
@Dice: lots of metagames are stagnant though and are still perfectly viable
Unoko: theres a metagame
Unoko: but then theres RNG
+PROBLEMS: i know how things work
@soviet: i think thats probably the wrong argument
@Dice: p much every ou from gen1-gen5
@soviet: bw is stagnant
@soviet: bw ubers
@Dice: are at a same lvl of stagnant
@soviet: and its a great meta
antacool number2: funny that some people say players lack of creativity but complains about creative teams
+Cranham: teams need to be creative and actually effective
+Cranham: you just run random gimmicks
@Dice: if you want to progress ur argument u have to argue how/why ubers should shift the current paradigm and how/why pdon + m-mence are so gamebreaking that the tier should

What are your thoughts on this? There have been claims that these two pokemon are the reasons as to why Ubers is not a part of SPL. I personally feel that Primal Groudon kinda centralizes and shifts the tier to revolve around it, while Mega Mence kinda has a difficult time setting up at certain points, but is still very dangerous in its own right. I know the definition of "broken" is a bit ambiguous in Ubers and there are stricter guidelines, but that is why I wanted to open up the discussion apart from Policy Review.

I personally wouldn't mind if we can just have a ladder without P-Don and Mega Mence to see how the meta actually develops and transforms, instead of basing everything on theorymon.

Here is the Mega Rayquaza banning reasoning thread for reference: http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...-is-added-m-ray-is-banned-from-ubers.3523205/

 

[Spyro Chris]

Alright. To talk seriously for once. If the tier leaders haven't mentioned anything about a suspect test, let alone to seriously consider a ban, a bump from one person and a discussion between 2-3 players, no matter how good, won't change anything. And that's all there is to it.

 

[Inspirited]

The deal with Primal Groudon is that it not only has massive offensive presence but it can also has its very large defensive strengths as well. Its defensive strengths are what make balance (and stall) teams possible in this metagame in my personal opinion. The only thing that kinda tips the Primal Groudon centric metagame into offense's (more importantly Fireburn's sampler that was created like week 1 of SPL 6) favor is something that Hack exposed publicly in the "Intro to Ubers" videos he and Pomman made: Darkrai's perfect offensive synergy with offensive Primal Groudon. This is pretty obvious to people who have looked at the metagame as a whole and have played with it for awhile but it is a very tricky problem to solve. In my personal opinion this is more of a Darkrai problem than a Primal Groudon problem, but Darkrai leaving would also cause its own issues in that it would make balance far stronger than anything else. Double Psychic offense would still exist and function as usual (this uses Mewtwo > Darkrai anyways), but even that uses a Giratina-O which will be status fodder for Ho-Oh + hexgar balance unless it creeps and runs Stone Edge.

other effects to consider if Darkrai leaves the metagame

Accounting for the effects of Spikes on hyper offense is where this gets very hard to think about without testing. It would take awhile for the suicide leads to settle into their respective places, but I believe the leads that can spin would come out on top though just because of how threatening other Spikes, with the most reliable Spikes user being Deoxys-S, are to Hyper Offense. What will skew this is what anti-Defog measures are taken and which leads in questions are directly affected by these developments. I personally think it is worth testing because of these effects. Whether or not it will, I have no say in.

The biggest issue people will have with this change is when balance gets stronger, stall gets weaker. Stall being the weakest playstyle is fine with me to be honest just because of how reactively it is played when it is stronger than other playstyles. This change might make it "too weak" though. The amount of Mega Gengar + Ho-Oh I expect to follow in Darkrai's leaving will make stall far more niche in that it will only be there to shaft weakly built, Gengar-less hyper offense teams. Strongly built hyper offense should always have a way to deal with stall though or most importantly Arceus-Water + Lugia + Primal Groudon and any partners that happen to work well with them. Stall is already pretty weak right now, making it weaker may be a problem with most people.

On Mega Salamence, I think it fits in the same boat as Primal Groudon only it can perform very well defensively as well as be extremely threatening at the same time with its ability to boost its Speed and Attack on just about anything. It is one of the bigger reasons why hyper offense and other offensive builds work due to its ability to punish Ho-Oh, Primal Groudon, and (in very niche cases) Extreme Killer. Without Mega Salamence, it would disallow hyper offense and bulky offense without the use of a fast Stone Edge Giratina-O and another niche set E-killer check, but what other niche set E-killer check is there that doesn't give Ho-Oh a status / stack terribly with Giratina-O? I personally think Mega Salamence is a necessary evil as getting rid of it would kill multiple playstyles and make Ho-Oh balance extremely strong... and it is already arguably the best playstyle. Salamence is extremely threatening, but I do think it provides enough defensive stability, gives enough playstyles life, and has enough just counterplay against it to remain in Ubers permanently. Removing it would cause far more problems than it would solve in my opinion.

If that wasn't enough, I am going to give the my own version of the "Ubers" speech. This is a tier that builds itself around centralization and hypercentralization. As long as the (hyper)centralized Pokemon provides a way for multiple playstyles to work in different ways and doesn't necessarilly kill any playstyles, I personally see no reason to suspect or ban anything. Banning in this tier should only happen if heavy RNG playstyles appear as they kill the skill ceiling, that is already pretty low in mons, or if a centralizing Pokemon kills a very large amount of playstyle diversity and only allows for one playstyle to be viable in the metagame.

Example: Mega Rayquaza only allowed hyper offense to function, killed every other playstyle due to its ability to punish 95% of all Pokemon absurdly hard with its ability to nuke the entire metagame with Dragon Ascent + filler coverage .

PS: I am very hesitant to support a Darkrai suspect because it doesn't really kill any playstyles, it strengthens hyper offense and greatly strengthens Fireburn's sample team which will naturally kill quite a bit of diversity in the hyper offense playstyle, and the only RNG based plays it causes are Dark Void misses (that hurt it) and the occasional Mega Gengar / Mewtwo Focus Blast aimed at it which is very minimal in my opinion. It also hurts hyper offense diversity by blanket checking many possible suicide leads that would function reasonably with its presence. Is this too much though, that is where opinions will fly and no result will please everyone. This alone probably means a suspect will not be worth the result. Honestly, the metagame is probably fine if Darkrai is the biggest gripe I have with it.

 

[Funbot28]

The deal with Primal Groudon is that it not only has massive offensive presence but it can also has its very large defensive strengths as well. Its defensive strengths are what make balance (and stall) teams possible in this metagame in my personal opinion. The only thing that kinda tips the Primal Groudon centric metagame into offense's (more importantly Fireburn's sampler that was created like week 1 of SPL 6) favor is something that Hack exposed publicly in the "Intro to Ubers" videos he and Pomman made: Darkrai's perfect offensive synergy with offensive Primal Groudon. This is pretty obvious to people who have looked at the metagame as a whole and have played with it for awhile but it is a very tricky problem to solve. In my personal opinion this is more of a Darkrai problem than a Primal Groudon problem, but Darkrai leaving would also cause its own issues in that it would make balance far stronger than anything else. Double Psychic offense would still exist and function as usual (this uses Mewtwo > Darkrai anyways), but even that uses a Giratina-O which will be status fodder for Ho-Oh + hexgar balance unless it creeps and runs Stone Edge.

other effects to consider if Darkrai leaves the metagame

Accounting for the effects of Spikes on hyper offense is where this gets very hard to think about without testing. It would take awhile for the suicide leads to settle into their respective places, but I believe the leads that can spin would come out on top though just because of how threatening other Spikes, with the most reliable Spikes user being Deoxys-S, are to Hyper Offense. What will skew this is what anti-Defog measures are taken and which leads in questions are directly affected by these developments. I personally think it is worth testing because of these effects. Whether or not it will, I have no say in.

The biggest issue people will have with this change is when balance gets stronger, stall gets weaker. Stall being the weakest playstyle is fine with me to be honest just because of how reactively it is played when it is stronger than other playstyles. This change might make it "too weak" though. The amount of Mega Gengar + Ho-Oh I expect to follow in Darkrai's leaving will make stall far more niche in that it will only be there to shaft weakly built, Gengar-less hyper offense teams. Strongly built hyper offense should always have a way to deal with stall though or most importantly Arceus-Water + Lugia + Primal Groudon and any partners that happen to work well with them. Stall is already pretty weak right now, making it weaker may be a problem with most people.

On Mega Salamence, I think it fits in the same boat as Primal Groudon only it can perform very well defensively as well as be extremely threatening at the same time with its ability to boost its Speed and Attack on just about anything. It is one of the bigger reasons why hyper offense and other offensive builds work due to its ability to punish Ho-Oh, Primal Groudon, and (in very niche cases) Extreme Killer. Without Mega Salamence, it would disallow hyper offense and bulky offense without the use of a fast Stone Edge Giratina-O and another niche set E-killer check, but what other niche set E-killer check is there that doesn't give Ho-Oh a status / stack terribly with Giratina-O? I personally think Mega Salamence is a necessary evil as getting rid of it would kill multiple playstyles and make Ho-Oh balance extremely strong... and it is already arguably the best playstyle. Salamence is extremely threatening, but I do think it provides enough defensive stability, gives enough playstyles life, and has enough just counterplay against it to remain in Ubers permanently. Removing it would cause far more problems than it would solve in my opinion.

If that wasn't enough, I am going to give the my own version of the "Ubers" speech. This is a tier that builds itself around centralization and hypercentralization. As long as the (hyper)centralized Pokemon provides a way for multiple playstyles to work in different ways and doesn't necessarilly kill any playstyles, I personally see no reason to suspect or ban anything. Banning in this tier should only happen if heavy RNG playstyles appear as they kill the skill ceiling, that is already pretty low in mons, or if a centralizing Pokemon kills a very large amount of playstyle diversity and only allows for one playstyle to be viable in the metagame.

Example: Mega Rayquaza only allowed hyper offense to function, killed every other playstyle due to its ability to punish 95% of all Pokemon absurdly hard with its ability to nuke the entire metagame with Dragon Ascent + filler coverage .

PS: I am very hesitant to support a Darkrai suspect because it doesn't really kill any playstyles, it strengthens hyper offense and greatly strengthens Fireburn's sample team which will naturally kill quite a bit of diversity in the hyper offense playstyle, and the only RNG based plays it causes are Dark Void misses (that hurt it) and the occasional Mega Gengar / Mewtwo Focus Blast aimed at it which is very minimal in my opinion. It also hurts hyper offense diversity by blanket checking many possible suicide leads that would function reasonably with its presence. Is this too much though, that is where opinions will fly and no result will please everyone. This alone probably means a suspect will not be worth the result. Honestly, the metagame is probably fine if Darkrai is the biggest gripe I have with it.

Good points, but the problem I believe with Darkrai is that it can really only fit on one team archetype and does not work well vs some other matchups depending on the checks/counters they decide to bring (however there isn't many). Primal Groudon does allow the use of all archetypes yes, but the problem is that it can be used on every team being balanced, stall, offense without justification due to its immaculate splashability and capabilities. To me , this leaves the tier in a saturated state in which any team could possibly be at a disadvantage if they do not decide to carry a Primal Groudon. This level of centralization is too ubiquitous even for the Ubers metagame imo, and this is why I believe many players consider the tier to be "aids" and "cancer". Mega Salamence is a bit harder to fit in on these points, but they still are a bit applicable.

 

[Aberforth]

Mega Mence is fine, no need to suspect it lol.

Groudon is also probably ok, although I would be very interested in a ladder to test it out. Not broken nor banworthy though.

Primal ogre wouldn't be too much without groudon gone imo btw.

 

[Funbot28]

Guess will tag Sweep Fireburn as a lot of people on PS have also wanted a Primal Groudonless ladder.

Although I am worried about P-Ogre if P-Don is banned due to its best checks/counters would be Ferrothorn and Blissey...

 

[hyw]

Mega Salamence is totally fine but Primal Groudon is on another level and should be banned, it's arguably worse than Mega Rayquaza in terms of over centralization. At the same time, though, Primal Kyogre would have to go as well as Primal Groudon is really its only true counter. The correct decision early on should have just been to ban Mega Rayquaza, Primal Groudon, and Primal Kyogre from the get-go but oh well.

 

[Thetwinmasters]

Mega Salamence is totally fine but Primal Groudon is on another level and should be banned, it's arguably worse than Mega Rayquaza in terms of over centralization. At the same time, though, Primal Kyogre would have to go as well as Primal Groudon is really its only true counter. The correct decision early on should have just been to ban Mega Rayquaza, Primal Groudon, and Primal Kyogre from the get-go but oh well.

You actually can't be serious thinking Primal Groudon is worse than mray in over centralizing the meta.

 

[Funbot28]

You actually can't be serious thinking Primal Groudon is worse than mray in over centralizing the meta.

I think he meant that P-Don can be used on practically all team archetypes, while Mega Ray was kinda limited to offense and maybe balance.

 

[Thetwinmasters]

I think he meant that P-Don can be used on practically all team archetypes, while Mega Ray was kinda limited to offense and maybe balance.

Expect in the mray meta stall and balance didn't exist and every team was the exact 6 mons how is pdon more centralizing than that?

 

[hyw]

Please, let's not argue this. Primal Groudon is obviously more overcentralizing than Mega Rayquaza, the former is a necessity on every single team as it's the only counter to Primal Kyogre while the latter is neither a necessity nor can it fit on every team archetype. But yeah now that Mega Rayquaza is gone we're just two Pokémon away from having Ubers be a serious metagame. With the banning of Mega Rayquaza and creation of Anything Goes, we as a community decided in unison that Ubers is now in fact no longer a mere banlist but a metagame, and conflicts between conservative and liberal views have been holding back progress. Let's embrace the fact that Ubers is now a competitive metagame above OU and that the garbage dump has now moved to AG, and at the least, let us have discussion of a Primal Groudon + Primal Kyogre suspect test! No bullshit elections like the Shadow Tag one, too, lol.

 

[Jibaku]

Mega Rayquaza doesn't fit into every team archetype; it simply destroys all of them but hyper offense. I'd rather have Primal Groudon on every team if it means multiple playstyles exist, than have to deal with hyper offense everywhere because Mega Rayquaza is flat out unwallable.

Anyways my stance on this has remained the same: turning Ubers into OU v2 and balancing it further than the bare minimum for competitive-ness is silly and destroys the point of the tier. However, as I haven't been relevant (why do I still have mods rofl), I rest my case and probably won't bother ppl about this anymore.

 

[Funbot28]

Mega Rayquaza doesn't fit into every team archetype; it simply destroys all of them but hyper offense. I'd rather have Primal Groudon on every team if it means multiple playstyles exist, than have to deal with hyper offense everywhere because Mega Rayquaza is flat out unwallable.

Anyways my stance on this has remained the same: turning Ubers into OU v2 and balancing it further than the bare minimum for competitive-ness is silly and destroys the point of the tier. However, as I haven't been relevant (why do I still have mods rofl), I rest my case and probably won't bother ppl about this anymore.

I hear it a lot that if we decide to suspect things in Ubers, we are turning the tier into OU. However, if we continue to allow such aspects that oversaturate the metagame does not really follow Smogons etiquette for a proper metagame that we deemed it back in 2014. Being as competitive as possible is what we should be aspiring to become if we want this tier to participate in tournaments, and we should be following Smogons guidelines for a proper competitive metagame (such as OU's but to a much higher caliber). Anything Goes was created for a reason, and I don't believe that reason is solely to be the home of Mega Ray, when their are other uncompetitive elements in the tier in their own rights. Doesn't every player want their own subjective "playable" tier?

 

[dice]

i've always maintained that darkrai and ho-oh are the two op's of ubers. primal groudon too obviously but he's better checked by every team because he's on every team. snorlax effect. darkrai on average probably goes 1.5 - 1 every game it's in and has a pretty decent defensive niche of checking bulky arceus and just being able to revenge kill a lot of shit by virtue of speed and sleep. ho-oh has a much more defined defensive niche and is just fucking powerful. teams being able to effectively handle ho-oh often make or break their viablity, and this mon alone is one of the reasons offensive primal kyogre isn't good-- pogre makes waterceus redundant and it can't check ho-oh without a defensive spread while the meta overall forces it to run an offensive set to be usable.

ubers suspects just ruin the philosophy behind the tier. you would be creating a tier without an idiosyncratic purpose. like jibaku said, how would making ubers ou v2 solve anything? it would confuse the purpose of ubers and just devalue any and all attempts of innovation and culture that have created the current and past metagames.

you're opening such a huge can of worms with this 'ubers should have suspect testing for balance' drivel. it makes no sense. this isn't what ubers is; that is for ou and below. we make the best of what we have, and that is our unique niche.

there is evidence of balance seen in the tier through consistent player success, sound teams, etc. this would be an attempt to shift the ideology of ubers which is, quite frankly, based on unfounded anecdotal whining.

 

[Funbot28]

ubers suspects just ruin the philosophy behind the tier. you would be creating a tier without an idiosyncratic purpose. like jibaku said, how would making ubers ou v2 solve anything? it would confuse the purpose of ubers and just devalue any and all attempts of innovation and culture that have created the current and past metagames.

you're opening such a huge can of worms with this 'ubers should have suspect testing for balance' drivel. it makes no sense. this isn't what ubers is; that is for ou and below. we make the best of what we have, and that is our unique niche.

there is evidence of balance seen in the tier through consistent player success, sound teams, etc. this would be an attempt to shift the ideology of ubers which is, quite frankly, based on unfounded anecdotal whining.

This philosophy has been skewed and tampered with in ORAS, and holding conservative mindsets does not really orientate with the rest of Smogon's ideologies just to maintain uniqueness. Of course there are extremely high standards when it comes to banning in Ubers, and in no way shape or form should we follow OU guidelines to banning. Alternatively, these guidelines can be translated to the Ubers environment since every Smogon "tier" should have a criteria into determining whether or not a pokemon could potentially be banned from that respective tier. Unless we reverse what has been done in 2014, Ubers should hold no exception when it comes these aspects just because it differs slightly from OU-PU. The fact that many competent players regard the reasoning for Ubers not begin in SPL because of these problems just ring several red flags, and safeguarding this way of tiering that was instilled many years ago can be redundant, especially when the power level seems to increase every generation (ie: Perfect Zygarde). Should we really continue these restrictive principles for "consistency" if we know these issues are somewhat present and may worsen as time goes on? Has this etiquette been proven to work the best and should be maintained? These are all questions that need to be addressed due to the controversy ORAS has brought to us when it comes to these traditions.

 

[dice]

mega rayquaza is an anomaly and citing it as precedent for future banning is silly. mega rayquaza had no counterplay and singlehandledly forced games by itself. nothing in the current metagame does anything of the sort. ubers does have criteria in which we ban pokemon: for playability. and...... nothing is really impeding that in the current metagame.

pandering to "non-conservatives" by citing these nameless High Level Players and an unknown pokemon forme seems kinda irrelevant as well..........

and yes, ou and ubers having the same goal is absolutely blasphemous. how do you justify ou's initial ban list when ubers can also achieve balance with fewer pokemon? how do you disregard years of statutes because you feel like the currently balanced tier could be improved? i know fucking well bw2 ubers could have been improved as well, but i'm not arguing to desecrate years of functional, no-nonsense systems based on contrived theorymon.

 

[Minority]

The ban P Don conclusion requires both an insufficient knowledge of game theory and a failure to grasp the dynamic between Ubers and lower tiers.

For those interested in a P Don-less Ubers just for the sake of curiosity we did that already here.

I also don't find it appropriate to bump a dead thread and derail it with ban discussion, especially when this already got necroed in PR.

 

[SparksBlade]

that's a very confused post to me, so i'll break it down to as how i read it, correct me if im wrong

Has anyone considered the possibility that ORAS Ubers just sucks? Let's face facts, it sounds like from the feel of this thread that there's too much "wrong" with the metagame to even attempt to "fix" it. So ok, let's ban all of P-don, MegaMence, GeoXern, Arceus forms, Dark Void, Shadow Tag, and probably P-ogre seeing as how they seem to be what's causing the metagame to become "unfun" to many. But are you even playing ORAS Ubers then? And also, is it really going to make the metagame better or any more balanced if you remove those elements?

"if we ban mence xern arc dark void stag ogre don, will it even be ubers?"
i really dont know why this is important, so moving on

The old philosophy to ban as little as possible for Ubers was designed to create a "tier" where you can play with basically everything the games have to offer while still being playable at a competitive level. That sounds like a good approach to a tier where you're faced with giant threats like Arceus. The question is to define what is "playable at a competitive level." Does "playable" include an element of fun or enjoyment, or not? "Fun" is a very subjective way to approach tiering. "Playable" itself is a bit more objective in which you can ascertain if the better player typically wins or not.

"fun is subjective, playable is objective"
agreed

My question is this: why are so many of the arguments supporting the removal of P-don, or even a change in tiering philosophy, based on the subjective criterion of making the tier more "fun?" Everyone has their own idea of what a "fun" metagame is, and nobody is ever going to be fully satisfied with the end result. You will never reach this idealized result of making a more fun ORAS Ubers metagame.

"why are arguments about removing pdon based on fun(which is subjective"
cos people don't enjoy seeing the red of pdon all day

This is why to me the current approach to this issue should be: How much does P-don (or x factor) truly affect games at the highest competitive level, and are the games centered around it to the point that they make the games non-competitive? If P-don, or whatever else, do indeed make the games non-competitive, I think in that approach they can be logically banned from Ubers in the same vein that Mega Ray and Moody were (maybe not the same extent, but the same logic reasoning) in order to keep competitive integrity.

"if something makes the game non-competitive, ban it regardless of the degree of influence"
agreed, and that's what's done too

In the end though I think some in this community are going to have to face the reality that ORAS Ubers is just going to be unfun for them, despite Ubers being a great metagame in DPP and ok BW. Maybe it'll be better in Gen 7 with some new balancing features that aren't quite as overpowered as the Primal shit ORAS introduced.

"face it: oras ubers might be unfun to you; dpp was good; bw was ok; hopefully gen7 improves"
ik many people find oras ubers, but also many others find it fun
dpp was great
so was bw
i, too, pray to the sun and moon on every eclipse

i really don't get what you're trying to say tho. you want pdon banned? you say oras ubers is not fun and non-competitive? are you scared that someone will call you out, which is why you don't say anything straightforward?

 

[Aberforth]

Did you just fucking...?

OK Sweep I'm infracting this guy, he's literally copy pasted Oglemi's post in the PR thread to pass it off as his own work.

E: Post deleted now.