Primal Groudon and Mega Salamence in Ubers - Concerns from SPL

Bughouse

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Some have suggested that Primal Ogre would be immensely good in a meta without Primal Don.

Just curious if data miner Antar might have any ladder stats about this, as it is relevant to the practicality of a ban, even if not the philosophy or necessity.
 
Bughouse, I mean, sure.

Kyogre checks & counters said:
+----------------------------------------+
| Checks and Counters |
| Ferrothorn 61.999 (69.09±1.77) |
| (7.0% KOed / 62.1% switched out) |
| Zekrom 60.876 (71.39±2.63) |
| (38.4% KOed / 33.0% switched out)|
| Chansey 60.199 (71.11±2.73) |
| (7.7% KOed / 63.5% switched out) |
| Kangaskhan 58.863 (68.00±2.28) |
| (42.4% KOed / 25.6% switched out)|
| Palkia 55.792 (66.62±2.71) |
| (30.1% KOed / 36.5% switched out)|
| Arceus 55.636 (61.14±1.37) |
| (46.9% KOed / 14.2% switched out)|
| Xerneas 55.306 (60.09±1.20) |
| (48.7% KOed / 11.4% switched out)|
| Blissey 54.799 (67.80±3.25) |
| (9.8% KOed / 58.0% switched out) |
| Kyurem-Black 51.713 (82.32±7.65) |
| (51.0% KOed / 31.3% switched out)|
| Mewtwo 50.773 (57.58±1.70) |
| (45.6% KOed / 12.0% switched out)|
+----------------------------------------+
So Kyogre is well-countered (or at least checked) by a lot of shit that's not named Groudon. Seriously. Those C&C scores are great. Note that 80% of Kyogres run Blue Orb (at the 1630 baseline).
 

Bughouse

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Bughouse, I mean, sure.



So Kyogre is well-countered (or at least checked) by a lot of shit that's not named Groudon. Seriously. Those C&C scores are great. Note that 80% of Kyogres run Blue Orb (at the 1630 baseline).
with all due respect, I am leery of any method of finding "checks and counters" that fails to find Primal Groudon as a top counter to Primal Kyogre

I was hoping more for some sort of stat on winrate of teams with Primal Kyogre in games that don't have Primal Groudon, if that's even remotely doable.
 
Yeah, Bughouse, that's a meaningless metric for a lot of reasons. First of all, with matchmaking, W-L ratio really more reflects difficulty of matches rather than actual skill or success. Secondly, that statistic would be thrown off by bad players using Groudon ineffectively.

The reason that Groudon doesn't show up as a check to Kyogre is that it's all a matter of who comes in last. Mega-G still wants to switch out after Primordial Sea activates. Ferro, OTOH, pretty much walls all Kyogres, regardless of the scenario.
 
steelphoenix asked me to post for him the following:

What is the actual reason for Ubers having this philosophy in the first place? Why do our moderators still feel the need for Ubers to be the tier that bans as little as possible? Is there a legitimate reason for this besides preserving some perceived integrity of the tier and holding on to a banning philosophy that might well have become obsolete? If the majority of a community wants a change, it seems logical that this change should happen. I don't see why it has to be more complex than that. If you can't give me a reason for Ubers holding on to the philosophy of banning as little as possible aside from "it's tradition", then I'd seriously question why we still hold on to this philosophy. As brokenwings pointed out, we've already adopted (or been forced to adopt) some of OU's banning ideals. Why don't we go the next step and take it to the whole community regarding what should/shouldn't be banned?

I mean, it's pretty apparent this issue is causing a large rift in the community and I think something with such huge importance should be dealt with in a more logical manner. I'm just using an example here, but if everyone who played Ubers in SPL aside from one of its tier leaders and an old Ubers moderator dislikes the tier, then I think something's wrong with it.

I also think we should put it to a formal poll to decide who dislikes Ubers in its current form and who wants it to change. This, on its own, would not be used to decide anything. But it could give us real stats on who is/isn't unhappy with the tier as it is now, something I think could be a valuable tool in this argument.

- Steelskitty
 

Minority

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If you want to play in a tier who's banning philosophy seeks to maintain the largest power creep while attempting to create an enjoyable metagame then play OU. The speration between Ubers and OU is not determined by usage; it must be maintained via the difference in banning philosophy. Why is this so difficult for some people to grasp? If you still don't understand what adopting OU's banning policy entails then you should read this.

You could change the initial tiering so that current Ubers takes up the role of OU; this solves one of the three core issues and may have other unforeseen benefits (maybe relative balance could be achieved after a few bans), but comes with a different set of problems and still doesn't necessarily escape the reintroducing broken threats issue.

Current Ubers philosophy is not simply a matter of tradition; it is not your sexist grampa that is from a time when gender roles were more concrete. It is not holding onto outdated ideals just because that is how things were done in the past. Ubers philosophy is a breathing entity that has continually changed and adapted to new mechanics, new threats, new players, and new viewpoints to craft a competitive tier above OU and it has done a pretty good job. What was initially nothing more than a ban list became an official format many people consider to be superior to OU. It is unique in that what is determined to be legal is different from any other official Smogon tier, and it is this philosophy that gives Ubers its unique identity. Only by circumstance does Ubers have the illusion of balance in older generations when compared to recent generations and this is due to the inevitability of power creep. Regardless, this is what Ubers players elect to undertake; the tier lives on.

There are already 5 official tiers that ban in order to balance and promote a more enjoyable metagame. Why take away the only tier that is different just to have one more of what is already available?
 

Jibaku

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To all who want to balance Ubers, I have an idea about how this can be approached:

1) We saw in dice's thread people generally believe that OU should start off with an initial banlist. Alright let's proceed from here. Justify and explain why this initial banlist is important to OU, and redefine OU's philosophy with that in mind.

2) Ubers can then be transformed into the "Balanced Metagame without the Initial Banlist", and balancing will now be possible without the tier having the same identity as OU.

Obviously, as a player who enjoy Ubers for the lack of balancing (but still competitively playable), and the inclusion of virtually every Pokemon, I cannot support the idea. But it would at least make it so that Ubers wouldn't share the same purpose as OU when balancing happens - just with different Pokemon.




Also Mega Mence isn't at all comparable to Mega Ray .__.
 
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Soul Fly

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steelphoenix asked me to post for him the following:

What is the actual reason for Ubers having this philosophy in the first place? Why do our moderators still feel the need for Ubers to be the tier that bans as little as possible? Is there a legitimate reason for this besides preserving some perceived integrity of the tier and holding on to a banning philosophy that might well have become obsolete? If the majority of a community wants a change, it seems logical that this change should happen. I don't see why it has to be more complex than that. If you can't give me a reason for Ubers holding on to the philosophy of banning as little as possible aside from "it's tradition", then I'd seriously question why we still hold on to this philosophy. As brokenwings pointed out, we've already adopted (or been forced to adopt) some of OU's banning ideals. Why don't we go the next step and take it to the whole community regarding what should/shouldn't be banned?
Because Ubers comes from a fundamentally different place than OU+ does. It's neither usage based or balanced based, and no there's no question of it becoming "obsolete". Banning philosophy is the only factor that distinguishes Ubers from other tiers. Seriously this isn't hard to understand and many earlier posters have already emphasized on this point. I don't see what's so difficult to grasp. This isn't "tradition for tradition's sake". Minority Suspect's post already excellently deals with this aspect.
I mean, it's pretty apparent this issue is causing a large rift in the community and I think something with such huge importance should be dealt with in a more logical manner. I'm just using an example here, but if everyone who played Ubers in SPL aside from one of its tier leaders and an old Ubers moderator dislikes the tier, then I think something's wrong with it.
No there's nothing wrong with it. Even if there is according to you, unless you can justify it in the logical space of the Ubers philosophy, then too bad. Unlike OU etc, Ubers isn't a popularity contest. The change was to keep a tier playable and not turn into a M-Rayquaza clickfest. Centralization is not a consideration. Earlier a clutch of pkmn used to centralize, now 2 do, maybe in future 1 pokemon will without being god-tier like M-Rayquaza, as long as it adheres to Fireburn's checklist then there shouldn't be an issue.
I also think we should put it to a formal poll to decide who dislikes Ubers in its current form and who wants it to change. This, on its own, would not be used to decide anything. But it could give us real stats on who is/isn't unhappy with the tier as it is now, something I think could be a valuable tool in this argument.
Re-check the part about Ubers not being a popularity contest.



Most of this was a re-hash, but I hope this provides a concise answer to anti-Pdon/Pogre FAQ. Because there is a visible element of repetition in this thread with people keen to treat Ubers like OU. To reiterate. Ubers was never meant to adhere to subjective standards of "fun", people may or may not enjoy it because of this precise lack of balancing or being able to use cover legendaries in a competitive environment. The M-Ray ban was purely meant to keep it playable in a tournament format. None of these 3 come near to what that Monster was. Nor do they promise to sove any of the "problems of unfun-creation".

Basically please don't become OU. You know what's really unfun? Subjective Suspect Testing.




(I guess I should leave a little footnote about how I had my reservations about the creation of AG, with the goal of making "playable ubers" because ironically not very many people seem to be happy with Ubers as is, while we have lost the old unique standard of a metagame with competitive rules but with universal pokemon allowed. Was it really worth it, keeping a crippled shadow of a tier around?)
 
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Oglemi

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I mean, has anyone considered the possibility that ORAS Ubers is just going to suck? 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, 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?

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.

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.

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.

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.
 

Starmei

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I mean, has anyone considered the possibility that ORAS Ubers is just going to suck? 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, 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?
Disaster Area has made something like this, along with a few others. PP ORAS Ubers. After playing it for a while I can honestly say it's very fun to play, much more so than ORAS Ubers (for me and many others who've played it.) I'm not saying this is a good idea for ORAS Ubers but I just thought I'd state that I've had some experience playing with those exact bans and can say I thoroughly enjoyed it more than ORAS Ubers, and enjoyment is the primary reason to play any tier. I don't think straight up banning these things is a good idea but I do think that some kind of Primal-free (and Mega Mence?) ladder might work just to get a general reaction from the Ubers community as a whole. If it fails, so be it. Just remove the ladder and carry on as before. If people like it then we can act accordingly and think about a potential suspect test. I say we but realistically a 'random' like me isn't gonna be doing jack shit lol.

Red Orb
Blue Orb
Salamencite
Geomancy Xerneas
Shadow Tag
Baton Pass (limited to 3 mons)
Evasion

Just putting forward my experience/views, I'm in favour of trying a Primal-free (and Mence?) ladder. If you disagree then that's understandable but let me ask you this. What's the harm in trying? Worst possible outcome is that a couple of people get a little upset.

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.
If something's unfun then what's the point in playing? People will lose all motivation to play the tier if we just give up on it and end up making Ubers look like a joke. The general attitude among a lot of players about ORAS Ubers is already bad, a lot of people mock the tier or just state flat out that it's 'shit'. Which is quite disappointing considering that most of them have hardly even played the tier but that's another issue. How are Ubers players going to be motivated to play the tier if people just give up on it and they're supposed to accept that their tier is 'unfun'
Granted there are some people out there like Lord Outrage who enjoy playing ORAS Ubers right now and aren't in favour of any change/potential change but the majority of people I've spoken to and read opinions of have been in favour of change. Shutting down the majority isn't exactly what anyone wants to do - Suspect tests need a majority vote to get the ban/unban/whatever.

Not trying to call you out or anything o-o
 
Minority Suspect said:
There are already 5 official tiers that ban in order to balance and promote a more enjoyable metagame. Why take away the only tier that is different just to have one more of what is already available?
I think this point is super good, and worth emphasizing. I know there are some players who were immediately wary of the Mega Rayquaza ban, not because the ban itself was unjustified, but because there's a perception that sooner or later we "couldn't resist" going deeper down the rabbit hole and banning other threats like Primal Groudon. I think this proposed change in banlist philosophy is basically a worst-case-scenario for those people; for them, Ubers is a 'safe haven' where the constant threat of a banlist change isn't present like it is in every other current metagame. That's an important part of the format's identity and appeals to a unique subset of the community that isn't necessarily interested in regular testing periods or perfect balance.
 

Fireburn

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A response to brokenwings:

Our general baseline for establishing a competitively playable metagame is one where there is not one team style or strategy that is so domineering that it renders other styles and strategies virtually unviable. This was precisely the effect Mega Rayquaza had on the tier: its sheer power rendered hyper offense the only viable strategy, because its combination of stats, coverage, and boosting options rendered any defensive attempts to stop it utterly futile. Primal Groudon is not nearly that strong. While some have argued that offensive teams with Primal Groudon are the best strategy in the metagame, you cannot say that more defensive teams are unviable, as good balance and stall builds do exist (and some successful ones don't even have Primal Groudon on them). A metagame with a disputably best strategy is far different than a metagame with one viable strategy. A metagame with multiple viable tactics is one we can call playable. The Mega Rayquaza metagame was "bring Mega Rayquaza HO or lose," the end. That was not playable.

Note that I didn't say all the strategies had to be equally viable.

(As a small aside, you people who keep citing "the sample team" as the single best ORAS Ubers team and pointing to the SPL games it won as evidence need to take a step back and realize several of those were aided or decided by hax as well (I got a crucial Stone Edge crit on aim's Salamence, Sweep got mega-haxed as is his SPL curse, Jibaku got Dark Pulse flinches, etc.), and it + small edits thereof was only used in 4-5 matches. Chill.)

Your comparison of the subjectivity of playability and fun is also somewhat flawed. We can at least be somewhat objective in our determination of playability through basic heuristics (i.e. does the better player usually win, are there multiple viable tactics, etc.) whereas there is no possible heuristic that can establish even a remotely objective determination of fun. People can love or hate a metagame for any number of reasons that can sometimes be arbitrary: "fun" was never a reason to ban something and it never will be. The concept of "I think this Pokemon isn't fun" isn't even a valid reason to ban stuff from OU. The goal of any competitive game is to ensure the better player usually wins, which has nothing to do with fun.

I'm going to ignore your list of how Primal Groudon can beat all of its checks, because Primal Groudon having ways around its checks is something I already established, and that is not unique to Primal Groudon regardless. Most Ubers can beat their checks with the correct set/coverage move, listing how Primal Groudon can do it doesn't prove anything special.

(Small aside #2: Mega Salamence and Mega Rayquaza are not comparable. To do so is ignorant of the latter's even greater power and myriad of additional advantages, such as Swords Dance, EKiller-level Extremespeeds, +60 SpA, Delta Stream, and much wider assortment of coverage options.)
 

MikeDawg

Banned deucer.
in my gov class a long while ago, we took a survey of everyone's favorite food (ended up learning about the primary election process or soemthing. Idk, unimportant).

There was everything from "pizza" to "apples" to "reheated ribeye". Taste is entirely subjective, so there were a lot of nominations. Reheated ribeye was tied with kale, for example, with one nomination each. Despite the huge range of options, some foods were noticeably ahead such as pizza (at 8) and Burgers (at 6).

That being said, pizza was still only the favorite of ~25%, same with burgers. What about the other 75% that would get isolated by declaring any one food item the most delicious?

In the spirit of government, the super unpopular nominations were eliminated so that votes could be redistributed to their next-favorite relevant option. You can't please everyone perfectly, of course, but you can please the biggest group possible while still allowing the outliers to choose the next most delicious option (in their opinion).

Now pizza and burgers were even farther ahead while pasta and ice cream (i know, high schoolars are such neanderthals) began to gain traction. It was becoming more clear what the taste preferences were (kale definitely wasn't one of them, we know that!).

This process continued to repeat itself until only pizza and burgers were left. Pizza had a huge margin at this point (something like 22-13), and it was deemed the obvious favorite. Was it everyone's favorite? No. Was it the big majority? Yes. Would most of the burger lovers have been pleased with pizza anyway? Yes.

The best part is that only at the end were people really pressed to choose past their first or second choice, because the options depleted only little bits at a time by popularity. Everyone was still quite content with one of pizza/pasta/burger/ice cream. They may have lost their kale along the way, but there are still so many delcious things on the table! Taste is entirely subjective, of course, but we were able to please a huge part of the class even after eliminating a couple of options.



Now, raise your hands: pizza or kale?
 

shrang

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Some things that in brokenwings 's post that I feel need to be highlighted:

Going to go off on a bit of a tangent here to all the people using the “get creative” argument- When the most consistent team in tournaments by a decent margin has been the Deo-S sample team, what’s the point of trying to innovate? It completely kills my motivation and interest to play this tier when I see basically the exact same 5-6 mons in literally every other game I play or watch.
Why must you always need a reason to be innovative and creative? I don't know about everyone else, but I feel that this is a really negative attitude that you can't be innovative because you don't stand to gain anything out of it. You're not spending millions of dollars in a damn research project when you're playing Pokemon, so you do not need to see clear benefits from time used to be creative in this game. Can we not be creative just because we are curious human beings and seeing new things (that might or might not work) teases our imagination? A lot of new sets and builds come through failure, like all research. I used to think of new sets to try every day before I got bogged down irl. Most of them failed. If you're too afraid to get your hands dirty trying out things that you are afraid might fail, then you shouldn't complain about metagames taking away creativity. There is no such thing as an un-creative metagame, only an un-creative player.

Anyway, I personally think that ORAS isn't even that bad of a metagame. It's not very good, sure, but I'm pretty sure the negative attitude that sticks around Ubers makes it seem 100x worse. I'm not going to name names, but when people bitch as much as they do around our tier, it's enough to make any experience that much worse.

Some people found the Rayquaza metagame completely playable and fun, yet it was still banned for being a horrendously broken piece of shit, regardless of how you want to phrase it.
Name 5.
 
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Inspirited

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I was one, and judging by his post, Conflict did also. That isn't five, but that is a couple of us. My own personal thoughts is that the Mega Ray meta wasn't fully explored, but that isn't what this thread is about.

Mega Ray was subjective, Primal Don and Mega Mence are subjective, nothing changed here other than the Mence and Don are significantly less GOAT-like than Mega Rayquaza. All in all it is up to tier leader opinions and how we try to sway them, and it looks like Fireburn's will remains unbroken and Sweep shares a similar opinion. If enough people want to play a different metagame without don or mence, then play it that way; either through a gentleman's agreement in tournament games, or by starting tours that have these bans for balance in them like Pokemon Perfect ORAS Ubers or, in UU's case, Kokoloko tournaments like the long over BW Hail and Tini ban and the Koko's ideal UU tournament that is going on right now. Unfortunately, official tournaments are all up to the tier leaders and what they want their metagame to look like. SPL was brought up in the OP, but I think the actual question is should ORAS Ubers be included in SPL (or any official tournament for that matter) if this is the tier leaders' vision of the metagame? This was a question dice brought up regarding Shadow Tag and matchup biases in XY Ubers and I don't think it was ever fully answered. It is up to the opinions of the TDs and the future hosts of official tournaments, but it would be good to see your opinions on this since the question does pertain to the OP in some fashion.
 
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counterargument to the "imbalanced tier" notion: if there have been teams created in oras ubers where are mostly agreed by the playerbase to be fundamentally sound, doesn't that suggest there is a semblance of balance in the tier? ergo, the tier is currently functional to a certain degree.

banlist first, tier second.

i'd just rather not see ubers in tournaments.
 
SPL was brought up in the OP, but I think the actual question is should ORAS Ubers be included in SPL (or any official tournament for that matter) if this is the tier leaders' vision of the metagame?
Absolutely, assuming ORAS Ubers is a competitive metagame where the superior player will be able to beat the inferior player the majority of the time. I am not currently convinced that Primal Groudon or Mega Salamence are so overpowered that they "level the playing field" for lesser players to win consistently at the tournament level.

Fireburn and I are on the same page regarding the state of the ORAS Ubers metagame: neither of us feel that banning Groudon or Mega Salamence would improve the metagame much, as their banishment would open the door for Pokemon like Primal Kyogre, Mega Gengar, and others to be similarly dominant in the new metagame. In this regard, I strongly agree with what Oglemi posted earlier. However, I personally am not opposed to using a ladder without Primal Groudon or Mega Salamence for tiering decisions. I dislike basing my opinions entirely on theorymon and if I'm proven wrong -- and ORAS Ubers improves without the presence of both of these Pokemon -- then we can start exploring whether or not something should be done about Primal Groudon and Mega Salamence.
 

Inspirited

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Absolutely, assuming ORAS Ubers is a competitive metagame where the superior player will be able to beat the inferior player the majority of the time. I am not currently convinced that Primal Groudon or Mega Salamence are so overpowered that they "level the playing field" for lesser players to win consistently at the tournament level.
I know that this thread is generally about these two, but I was coming from my own observation (one that says that these two aren't broken, it is the meta in general) which I posted:
Hmm, the way I see this is that no one threat puts Ubers over the edge. Instead, it seems that the quantity of threats that are all of ridiculous strength (the strength isn't the problem, the numbers of these pokemon with this sort of strength is). We are all Ubers players and have learned to adapt and play with very centralizing threats, but when the centralization is spread the way it is over many Pokemon, one team just has a whole lot of trouble trying to do the impossible in preparing for them all. Mega Salamence and Primal Groudon are scapegoated because they are easily the most powerful of these threats, but like Fireburn said, The are very manageable in the metagame in theory. What breaks the theory is the sheer amount of other threats that come with the tier that a team needs to prepare for. Say we remove Geomancy or Xerneas altogether, you could play around with new ways to handle Don and Mence because you don't need a Geoxern check and can use mons that Geoxern would usually like to set up on to check these two. Moves like Rest on Giratina-O would start to appear and faster Steel-types would start to gain popularity and would now have room for EVs and moves to help with Salamence. I realize this example is entirely theory, at this point, but it makes so much sense that I cannot ignore it. It definitely deserves looking into and I will do it myself if necessary.

This is the way I see the "power levels" and where the centralizing cut off is:
*** WARNING: THIS WILL LOOK ALMOST IDENTICLE TO THE VIABILITY RANKINGS THREAD ***
(this is a more accurate list of what I think of when teambuilding)

Tier 0:

- Primal Groudon
- Mega Salamence

Tier 1:
- Xerneas
- Arceus-Ghost
- Arceus
- Ho-Oh
- Primal Kyogre
- Darkrai
- Mewtwo
- Mega Mewtwo Y
- Mega Gengar
- Lugia

=== Arbitrary Centralization Cutoff ===
If you have plans against the above mons and all of their potential viable partners, you will more than likely get donked at team preview by one of these mons bellow or if they are partnered with a centralizing mon above.

Tier 2:
- Latios
- Latias
- Klefki
- Yveltal
- Arceus-Ground
- Deoxys-A
- Deoxys-S
- Arceus-Water
- Mega Sableye
- Dialga
- Mega Mewtwo X
- Excadrill
- Tyranitar
- Giratina-O
- Mega Diancie
- Rayquaza
- Arceus-Rock
- Ferrothorn
- Blissey
- Wobbuffet

Tier 3:
- Arceus-Dark
- Arceus-Fairy
- Kyurem-W
- Palkia
- Mega Kangaskhan
- Mega Lucario
- Ditto
- Genesect
- Arceus-Fighting
- Arceus-Ice
- Mega Metagross
- more that are forgotten about
Keep in mind that none of these Pokemon are game breaking on their own, but when thrown into an environment where they can be paired with the rest of tier 0, 1, and 2, the combinations possible are impossible to prepare for because of just how many centralizing threats and how much diversity there is. Too much diversity among powerful threats is actually very unhealthy for a metagame when being able to prepare for such diversity is left in the dust. The easiest way to "solve" the problem is banning threats of a certain tier, but none of them are powerful enough to warrant a ban is the problem. I am not saying that we should ban a certain power tier, but we should review our tiering policy and adapt because this problem will only grow worse as more Pokemon are created in generations to come.
Sorry for not making myself clear. I was mostly speaking to the "official tournament" side of the OP, not the Primal Groudon and Mega Salamence side.
 

PROBLEMS

AHEAD OF HIS TIME
bump

so we are just all going to ignore the fact this is the biggest problem within the tier which is the soul reason UBERS wasn't in SPL? Could an admin or something actually give me permission to pursue this issue because none of the tier leaders actually want to do anything about this.

NoKappa.

dice
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ubers-is-now-a-tier-a-new-metagame-called-anything-goes-is-added-m-ray-is-banned-from-ubers.3523205/
 
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Aberforth

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Ubers Leader
I'd just like to retract my concerns from this thread. My opinion is somewhat different from before.

EDIT: I'd still like to see a groudon suspect, but largely because its interesting, not cause of broken-ness. I'd probably vote to keep it too.

Double Edit: Baton Pass on the other hand can go straight to hell. Plz?
 
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what's the point of overused if ubers can balance itself with bans?

this is why i don't really see much merit in suspect testing these edge pokemon; they are able to be handled to a degree which makes the tier playable and fundamentally sound. changing the structure of ubers to accommodate for more playability just creates confusion in ubers' philosophy.
 
so we are just all going to ignore the fact this is the biggest problem within the tier which is the soul reason UBERS wasn't in SPL? Could an admin or something actually give me permission to pursue this issue because none of the tier leaders actually want to do anything about this.
There is nothing wrong with the ORAS UBERS metagame. Proof: Good players ALWAYS make it far in official UBERS tournaments.

Also Primal Groudon and Mega Salamence are not broken at all. The metagame is great as it is and good players win most of the time unlike other tiers currently in spl where anybody can win versus anybody.
 
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