Proposal Grandfathering Pokemon into Lower Tiers

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The proposal: usage-based rises will NOT prevent existing Pokemon of a lower tier from being used in that tier, instead being displayed as NU-G when building an NU team if it has risen to RU.

This proposal is fundamentally different from the previously suggested convoluted and arbitrary veto-based-on-viability-rankings system because there is simply no need to ever remove a Pokemon if said Pokemon is deemed a healthy and integral part of an already existing tier (by not having been banned).

Chaos has explained the purpose of the usage-based system in detail. His ideal was/is to create a tier for every Pokemon to have a chance to shine, while not being overpowered in that tier. There is no problem if a Pokemon is a healthy addition to two tiers, quite the opposite. Removing functional parts of a tier does nothing for this end.

Forming tiers around usage stats is the golden standard. It is by far the simplest and most objective way of going about it. From there on out, Pokemon should be tested if they could be good additions to a lower tier in case they fall through the cracks (usage-based drops). Rises, however, serve no competitive purpose. Their primary function is to accurately display a Pokemon's usage in the respective tier. You can do this without pointlessly removing their ability to be used in tiers they were deemed balanced in. In case a Pokemon rises from NU by it's usage in RU (think Flygon), it can be given the RU rank, but still be allowed in NU through this new clause. To display their legality, I would suggest giving them the NU-G description. We already have a functioning, better system in place that gets rid of overpowered Pokemon, namely the banlists (NUBL in this case).

There is a reason why this discussion keeps popping up. Dedicated players of lower tiers recognize this obvious flaw with the current lower tier system and wish to solve it. I think the competitive integrity granted to lower tiers by this change would be well worth the tradeoff that people need to learn what NU-G stands for.

chaos a comment on this idea would be appreciated
 
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shooting star

formerly Jirachirite
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Their primary function is to accurately display a Pokemon's usage in the respective tier.
And we should keep it this way. I honestly do not quite get why some people are so afraid that their metagame staples get so-called stolen by higher tiers? If a Pokemon is good in OU, it should stay in OU. The only flaw of the usage-based system is unviable Pokemon rising to higher tiers due to short-term trends/fads. Back then I suggested higher-tier councils regulating the legitimacy of these rises but that ship has long sailed because manipulating rises is too subjective. But then again, isn't deliberate removal of rises an act of manipulation itself? How is that any better?

Then there is also an issue of metagames becoming too similar, and may ironically drive people away from getting into lower tiers. Take RU as an example. Excluding the mons that got banned by RU, Cobalion, Darmanitan, Lycanroc-Dusk, Tangrowth, Torkoal, and Zarude are UU used to be RU, Terrakion is UUBL used to be RU, Barraskewda, Magnezone, Ninetales-Alola, Slowking-Galar, and Volcanion are OU used to be RU. And are rises honestly bad? Many non-broken Pokemon have risen over time and yet people still find lower tiers to be just as fun and competitive, maybe some more than others. For this generation, it seems that RU is the winner here. Don't make me get started on NU being infamous for stealing almost half of PU; eliminating rises would mean more obnoxious Wish-passing from broken Vaporeon in both NU and PU, and possibly more complaints from PU as well. And god forbid I see an assortment of UUBL-G and RU-G in the OU teambuilder, it just looks aesthetically unappealing and annoying. What you will have in the end is lower tiers becoming artificially inflated in the teambuilder.

I think the competitive integrity granted to lower tiers by this change would be well worth the tradeoff that people need to learn what NU-G stands for.
As mentioned earlier, competitive integrity can still be maintained even with some S-ranks rightfully rising to higher tiers, and people just need to learn how to adapt to change. I also think that locking rises near the end of the generation, though not perfect, is already a reasonable compromise.

Edit: grammar. And no UUBL-G and the likes is even worse, now you have obviously-OU mons like Blacephalon Weavile and Volcarona residing in UUBL instead, it just doesn't seem right.
 
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Just a short clarification for people skimming over this thread, UUBL-G and the likes are not being proposed by me as that would be pointless since the banlists aren't functioning tiers.

Besides that, for current and future arguments along the lines of "People are afraid of having to adapt":

While life goes on and we can certainly still have fun despite a random Pokemon disappearing here or there, that doesn't mean that we should stop seeking to improve our tiers out of complacency and/or resistance to change.
 

Arcticblast

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Maybe I'm too cynical, but this idea feels like it invalidates usage-based tiering entirely. If we can decide that a Pokemon that's easily OU by usage can also be played in UU, why even bother putting it in OU in the first place? Isn't the idea behind low tiers supposed to be places where you won't see the Pokemon that reside in higher tiers?

Boomer rant - it's been ages since I've played low tiers, but Pokemon rising out of a tier always felt like a feature, not a bug. Adapting to a volatile metagame was always part of the fun, and was more or less what you signed up for when you started playing.
 

Bughouse

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lest we repeat the entire thread:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/lower-tier-shifts.3638656/

outcome was ultimately some changes to tiering % thresholds, weighting, and elimination of quickrises. Even more things like this could probably be added if necessary. But grandfathering was rejected because it is a bad idea for reasons explained in the thread, and also as Arcticblast just said having to adapt to rises is a feature, not a bug.
 

shiloh

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Yeah, this won't be happening for reasons explained in many other places. Rises are just as fundamental as drops when it comes to making a tiering system and creating usage-based tiers.

Even saying that, this already exists in a form as we no longer have any rises in the last two tiering shifts of a generation. This gives tiering leaders and councils plenty of time to end the metagame with whatever tests are needed and plenty of time to create a balanced metagame that is able to stay as stable as possible even after the generation ends. This is the first generation we are doing it, so maybe there are some tweaks that we can implement at the end of generation 9, but the idea of removing rises altogether will never be an option.
 
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