Data Usage-Based Tier Update for January 2018 (Feb @ #263) (Mar @ #696)

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Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
If I can make a suggestion on the whole Landorus-T debate: would it be possible to create a second OU ladder where Landorus is not allowed?

To be clear, I am not advocating for banning or suspecting Landorus-T. However, I believe that the creation of this secondary OU ladder is a good idea, for quite a number of reasons:

1: It allows the community to see what the metagame would be like without Landorus, without the need for banning or suspecting it.
2: It lets the tiering leaders know exactly how much demand there is for such a ladder; whether it's a vocal minority, or whether the people calling for a suspect test are just the ones speaking up.
3: There is precedent for a secondary OU ladder in which a controversial element is disallowed, without that thing being suspected or banned in the main OU ladder - I'm thinking in particular of the "no Stealth Rock" ladder towards the tail end of BW2.
4: It satisfies the stated desire of many players to play OU without constantly seeing Landorus, without drastically changing the main metagame (or, indeed, changing it at all).
5: Even if the ladder ultimately is taken down, we'll have learned something through its inclusion. Did it get almost no one laddering on it? That's something to point to when people complain about the mon in the future. Does it seem like a more varied metagame? That could be something to consider for a possible suspect test further down the line. The thing is, we just don't know what a metagame without Landorus-T is like, and I feel like the inclusion of a ladder where we can figure that out is well worth it for that reason alone.

Whatever your opinion, thanks for reading and considering my proposal. :)
NJNP basically was aiming for exactly this with his proposal, which was for an OU Suspect ladder where stuff would be allowed/disallowed for a few weeks in order to see if a suspect is worth it (eg ou but with darkrai or necrozma dawn wings allowed, or like you said, ou with lando banned). He hasn't talked about it in a while, but it seems that the OU leadership isn't interested.

With that said, I would love to discuss a specifically no-lando ladder with you. Perhaps we can try to get support?
 

B R A I N L I C K E R

Banned deucer.
NJNP basically was aiming for exactly this with his proposal, which was for an OU Suspect ladder where stuff would be allowed/disallowed for a few weeks in order to see if a suspect is worth it (eg ou but with darkrai or necrozma dawn wings allowed, or like you said, ou with lando banned). He hasn't talked about it in a while, but it seems that the OU leadership isn't interested.

With that said, I would love to discuss a specifically no-lando ladder with you. Perhaps we can try to get support?
The powers that be would never let this happen cos they’re a bunch of pwussybois let’s be honest lollllll

Better to have a shit stale meta game where the mon that’s been #1 in usage for like 3 gens now and gets better with each isn’t considered busted
 
The powers that be would never let this happen cos they’re a bunch of pwussybois let’s be honest lollllll

Better to have a shit stale meta game where the mon that’s been #1 in usage for like 3 gens now and gets better with each isn’t considered busted
Actually in Gen 5 it wasn't #1 in usage but I get your point
 
D-nite and Staka in UU now? AND Zard y? is UU the new OU?
Zard Y is BL because 1) it got banned in UU beta and 2) Drought is banned in UU (I think) so it would be auto-banned anyway. Same with Mega Gengar: even if it gets nerfed down to 10 SpA, it would still remain Uber for only having Shadow Tag as ability.

Dnite is just a drop, nothing too special. Might get banned, but time will tell about that.

We can't even judge on Stakataka since it was a new mon, but its impact on UU seems to be quite big. Remember when everyone thought it would suck because of its typing? Its typing is actually something that keeps it kind of balanced in UU.
 

autumn

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Zard Y is BL because 1) it got banned in UU beta and 2) Drought is banned in UU (I think) so it would be auto-banned anyway. Same with Mega Gengar: even if it gets nerfed down to 10 SpA, it would still remain Uber for only having Shadow Tag as ability.

Dnite is just a drop, nothing too special. Might get banned, but time will tell about that.

We can't even judge on Stakataka since it was a new mon, but its impact on UU seems to be quite big. Remember when everyone thought it would suck because of its typing? Its typing is actually something that keeps it kind of balanced in UU.
drought isn’t banned in uu and dragonite is bl
 
The powers that be would never let this happen cos they’re a bunch of pwussybois let’s be honest lollllll

Better to have a shit stale meta game where the mon that’s been #1 in usage for like 3 gens now and gets better with each isn’t considered busted
The meta is always going to stabilize and remain more or less the same at some point unless we just continually ban more mons with the sole aim of forcing it to change every couple months. Pretty much the only reason the meta shifts dramatically is because of bans or follow up games releasing new moves/mons (and USUM didn’t really change much). Without those I don’t know why you’d expect that the meta will constantly change; there will be some natural ebb and flow as team building trends change (eg people stop preparing for a certain threat so it rises in popularity; people start preparing for it again so it drops) but other than that, how is the meta going to change when all the same Pokémon are available? Even if Lando left, the tier would resettle in a few months and you’d be back where we are now, especially since Lando doesn’t really invalidate any playstyles on its own that might see a resurgence in its absence.

Overcentralizing doesn’t just mean high usage, it means people have to make teambuilding choices specifically based on that Pokémon that they wouldn’t otherwise have to make if not for that single Pokémon’s presence (the most obvious example being mons that started running Shed Shell for Dugtrio when it was otherwise a completely useless item, plus things like Bronzong being run solely for MMeta and otherwise having no place in teambuilding, as others mentioned ). I can’t think of the last time I saw someone say in an explanation of a team that they added something specifically to deal with Lando; it’s dealt with naturally by so many other big threats/checks to big threats that you’d have to go out of your way to try to build an otherwise-viable OU team that managed to not check Lando.

Since others seem to be free to theorymon, I’d also suggest that the absence of Lando’s excellent role compression in OU would actually make teambuilding more linear because Lando easily covers 3-4 roles in one slot, freeing you to be more creative and have more variety in your other 5 team slots. If you have to have a separate rocker, Ground check, Electric check, physical attacker blanket check and pivot, that’s going to dramatically limit your ability to build teams the way most people do currently: starting with a particular mon or core you want to use and then building around it.
 
How long before stakka is banned as well xD
From UU? That may be surprisingly quick. Not only is it madly powerful and underspeeds everything in TR except for stuff that's unviable and/or can't touch it at all. Not only that, but its drop was bad timing too, since Alolawak dropped too which can use Trick Room very well too, along with some already existing UU inhabitants like Crawdaunt and Staplefag Scizor.

I'm currently looking for something to form a good core with it; was thinking Drifblim for being immune to Staka's main weaknesses but, like, Drifblim sucks. Gengar looked potent since it dropped too and can work outside of TR but it sadly lost Levitate this gen (the same gen they actually showed it floating... Why?)
 
From UU? That may be surprisingly quick. Not only is it madly powerful and underspeeds everything in TR except for stuff that's unviable and/or can't touch it at all. Not only that, but its drop was bad timing too, since Alolawak dropped too which can use Trick Room very well too, along with some already existing UU inhabitants like Crawdaunt and Staplefag Scizor.

I'm currently looking for something to form a good core with it; was thinking Drifblim for being immune to Staka's main weaknesses but, like, Drifblim sucks. Gengar looked potent since it dropped too and can work outside of TR but it sadly lost Levitate this gen (the same gen they actually showed it floating... Why?)
Try out Flare Boost Drifblim. I've never seen anyone use that before
 
From UU? That may be surprisingly quick. Not only is it madly powerful and underspeeds everything in TR except for stuff that's unviable and/or can't touch it at all. Not only that, but its drop was bad timing too, since Alolawak dropped too which can use Trick Room very well too, along with some already existing UU inhabitants like Crawdaunt and Staplefag Scizor.

I'm currently looking for something to form a good core with it; was thinking Drifblim for being immune to Staka's main weaknesses but, like, Drifblim sucks. Gengar looked potent since it dropped too and can work outside of TR but it sadly lost Levitate this gen (the same gen they actually showed it floating... Why?)
Herracross, Mega steelix and hippowdon just some examples that slows it down. Any TR team right now suffers from specs hydra before setup. Keep hydra alive at all cost. But its very annoying the meta is becomming TR. And its very powerful with the Z-Move as well so hopefully something can happen. If we was able to have Rotom wash this wouldnt have been a problem.
 

alephgalactus

Banned deucer.
NJNP basically was aiming for exactly this with his proposal, which was for an OU Suspect ladder where stuff would be allowed/disallowed for a few weeks in order to see if a suspect is worth it (eg ou but with darkrai or necrozma dawn wings allowed, or like you said, ou with lando banned). He hasn't talked about it in a while, but it seems that the OU leadership isn't interested.

With that said, I would love to discuss a specifically no-lando ladder with you. Perhaps we can try to get support?
You have my full, 100% support in this endeavor. I’ll see if I can get some other people on board.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't requiring usage one of the ways that something can be broken?
Also I agree with the idea of moderating these threads better.
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't requiring usage one of the ways that something can be broken?
Also I agree with the idea of moderating these threads better.
On the contrary, ladder usage is one of the worst arguments you can possibly make to ban something. Take a look at stuff like Donphan in RU, which is used tons despite being D rank, and you'll understand why.
 
I think the best comparison to this Landorus-T situation is the suspect test that RU had for Mega-Steelix and possibly Salamence in UU during ORAS. Where while it wasn't an offensive or defensive terror it was decided that it's overbearing presence stifled diversity and the viability of many other mons in the tier; not broken but hindered the tier as a whole.

Now the question is does Landorus-T do this for OU? Personally I don't know. But as I understand it the OU council feels the opposite, that lando (and possibly Toxapex) is/are actually the only thing(s) keeping the tier together. If Landorus-T goes then some other Pokemons would start getting banned because it's presence was the only thing keeping them checked.

Now I admit I could be wrong, but that's how I understand things.
 
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alephgalactus

Banned deucer.
I have a question for the anti-ban people, and I’m not trying to be hostile or anything, I’m just legitimately wondering: What percentage would Lando-T reach before you would say “yeah, that’s definitely a problem”?
 
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