Rethinking the current ban list

Delver

I got the runs like Jagger
Well, if the level of impact on the metagame these mons will have is your concern, then suspect testing them is the right choice...the fact of the matter is that both sides of the discussion are disagreeing on how much influence these possible additions will have on the meta, and suspect testing them is the best way to determine their influence. It just isn't blatantly obvious what they will do for the meta right now.
I agree, a suspect test would be the easiest way to test the theory. I think the question of the thread should be "do we think this warrants a change before the release of XY?" iss brings up a good point about it being litterally right around the corner. Personally I'm apathetic either way. If what I'm saying is true then not much will change where as if what you say is, then the meta will be better for it. I *honestly* hope you're right, but called it jadedness, I just dont see it happening.

If we're going to start a suspect test we should get it going ASAP. the longer we wait the more pointless it becomes.
 
In regards to LC having an already complex ruleset, that's completely true. Like I was saying on IRC though, it's a LOT easier to understand why Recover Download Porygon can't be used (aka is "banned") than why Tangela or Berry Juice (or Speed Boost) can't be: it's objectively impossible to get ingame. Unlike our subjective bans, which may be easier to mechanically understand but not subjectively agree with, things like Download Porygon are a mechanical complexity to our tier that is intrinsic. To me, that is completely separate from the bans that we choose to enact, and I think that's why I disagree with the reasoning of "LC is already complex so banning Speed Boost isn't that bad."
 

apt-get

it's not over 'til it's over
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I'm having mixed feelings on this.

On one side, I feel like these guys would shake up Little Cup BW2 a bit before X/Y comes out. Everyone's complaining about a "boring" metagame, darkhorse is kinda "take your most successful team and replace a pokémon with your darkhorse", and CCAT is kinda dead. This is the last shot we have to revive Little Cup before XY, I believe.
Like everyone said, these aren't broken without speed boost, at least that's what I believe because we didn't test them in BW. Yanma would definitely be a nice addition, and Carvanha would be correct. Also, for everyone saying that "torchic is not broken and might be released", I just want to say that, for the moment, we shouldn't care about the fire chicken. We're making this ban for now, we shouldn't care about the little possibility that a legit level 5 female torchic will be released. Seriously, they didn't do it for any starter. Why would they release it female now?

On the other side, it's true that I'm not a council member. I don't know how much work this would take, nor how would this affect the Little Cup policy. As iss stated, we should also rewrite a lot of entries, because yanma would affect a lot of pokémon in the tier, and this work shouldn't be ignored. There's also the fact that why would we bother to make another tedious ban right before the new gen is released and everything will change again?

I'm for this ban, but there are definitely a lot more cons than pros for this ban.
 

macle

sup geodudes
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I feel we should decide if we want to ban abilities or not. It doesn't matter if yanma and carvanha make the metagame more diverse or not. We should be consistent in our tiering. I feel if we suspect speed boost, we should do the same for other abilities.
 

Ray Jay

"Jump first, ask questions later, oui oui!"
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I always thought the whole "simplicity" argument was due to the technical ramifications; that is, complex bans weren't "easy" on previous simulators, and to my understanding this would be an easy unban. Further, for consistency purposes, I don't think you can make a case for a Moody ban but not a Speed Boost ban.
 
I don't really play LC as actively as I used to but there's very obviously a difference between Moody and Speed Boost. Moody changes the entire way Pokemon is played, and not for the better. Speed Boost is not nearly the gamebreaking and metagame ruining ability that Moody is. Banning Moody made competitive singles unmeasurably better and is an extreme case. Banning Speed Boost may not and probably will not yield the same positive effects. In fact, it may yield negative effects on LC, as iss manifested in his last post.
 

prem

failed abortion
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well moody is a shit example, but sand stream and snow warning at least were (idk if they still are) banned in uu and below. there is no precedent saying smogon has not banned abilities, so honestly its just a question of if lc will ban abilities like macle has said. the arguements for banning speed boost have been pointed out many many many times by people, and the only reason this is still being oppossed is because em, blarajan, and iss think that it is too complex and not worth it. no thats not a insult its just me saying why it hasnt happened. there is obviously support on the for banning speed boost side, so the only thing we are waiting for is a go from em because of end of bw and shit.

also if we do have a negative effect, it will literally only come from yanma so even then i feel that its fair cause vanha would be unnecessisarily banned. i agree with hawkstar on the focus on what we have, not what we could have arguement
 
One of the main arguments on the "Don't Unban" side is that it will copulate the rules heavily, but honestly, when I started off in LC, it was by myself and I found absolutely no problems or any confusion whatsoever with the rules of Little Cup. All my brother told me was "Level five Pokémon or lower in level" and I got it right away. The only parts of their argument that are valid is that the Analyses will get screwed up, but won't they get screwed up with the new Pokémon X and Y games anyway? Why not experiment with these Pokes for a while, and see how they fit in the meta. The only other descent excuse is that things like Vulpix will now need a shot just without Drought.

You guys need to realize that we only ask for a test, not for these Pokémon to be immediately accessible. Most of us, or at least me, just want to see two potentially usable Pokes get at least a chance in a meta where they could shine. If there is a negative effect, fine, don't use them, but a suspect test couldn't do much harm if there are people to test it.

I'm sorry if I have said a lot of stupid things or have offended anyone somehow.
 
The only parts of their argument that are valid is that the Analyses will get screwed up, but won't they get screwed up with the new Pokémon X and Y games anyway?
Analyses on XY are an entirely different thing from the Analyses on BW; what the QC team means (or what I understood) is that we would be doing analyses for BW "Speed Boost Ban era" in less than 8 months; then XY analyses will be priority and lots of Analyses will be left behind.

we only ask for a test
Little Cups are, imo, the best way to test the viability of these bans as many LC players are involved on them. It's not a testing ladder or anything but we can see the positives and negatives grosso modo that these policy will give.

but a suspect test couldn't do much harm if there are people to test it.
Time is really against us: we have a countdown to Gen VI and suspect testing and analyses writing will be hard to complete in time.

On the other hand, Little Cup has become a very stale Metagame far from the perfect balanced game utopia as the top three pokemon really stop versatility in the tier; to say it bluntly: it has become boring. As a "low level player", I think these kind of twists on the tier can give it a new lease of life. That being said, letting the players experiment with diversity in a "controled atmosphere" can bump the activity, as seen with the Dark Horse Project and the aforementioned Little Cups.
 
To preface this post, the "staleness" of the Little Cup metagame has absolutely no bearing on this case. The current metagame, your opinions on it, and whether or not you think this will "make Little Cup better" by putting two more Pokemon in the tier have absolutely nothing to do with the decision made by Elevator Music or me, and has absolutely nothing to do with the acceptance of this proposal.

There are three conditions that need to be met for this proposal to be accepted.

First: We must accept that banning part of a Pokemon is acceptable in Little Cup besides extreme cases, which requires changing our vision of Little Cup and how we tier it. Non Pokemon bans in Little Cup include: Sonicboom, Dragon Rage, Moody, and Berry Juice. We also accept the OHKO clause, which bans the use of moves Sheer Cold, Fissure, Guillotine, and Horn Drill. The moves, Sonicboom and Dragon Rage, are the epitome of an exception. They are unanimously broken on any instance they appear in a moveset. Likewise, we adhere to the OHKO clause, which also bans moves--any arguing over this aspect of the banlist and it being representative of an over complicated ban list holds no bearing. Moody is likewise a terrible exception--it brought the entirety of Smogon to its knees, even being resulted in a ban in Ubers. Finally, Berry Juice is not an inherent part of a Pokemon. It's equivalent to the Soul Dew Clause in OU. Banning an item is not inherently problematic regarding our vision--it is not an inherent part of a Pokemon like the ability Speed Boost. The current ban list does not hold any inconsistencies with our vision with the tier--Speed Boost would not fit right in, as many of you seem to believe. It would the odd man out on so many levels.

Second: We must accept that Speed Boost is an acceptable suspect, having agreed to the first condition. I disagree with that based off of my views on when to ban a part of a Pokemon. I recognize the current camp's claim saying that "In BW2 LC in a vacuum, Speed Boost is only available on two Pokemon, both of which are banned." However, I do not consider that coincidence, and the poor reasoning that has occurred thereof, as an acceptable reason to consider this case. I very much adhere to the "if we ban a part of a Pokemon, that's because it would be broken on everything with it." We can accept that we have not banned Huge Power, even if Meditite has it, due to Azurill having it. Azurill is stupid, even with Huge Power. Thus, Huge Power is not intrinsically broken in Little Cup--Meditite with it is. Meditite, with its excellent dual STABs, access to STAB recovery, and good speed, in tandem with its insane Attack stat after Huge Power, is broken. Meditite as a whole is broken. We can break the Meditite example into two parts.

1) Assume something shitty like Wurmple got Speed Boost. Wurmple would still not be broken, even with Speed Boost. As such, we can tell Speed Boost is not inherently broken. This is different than the Moody case, where (almost) everything that gets it would be broken with it, thus illustrating it as broken. Furthermore, this is consistent with our ban of Vulpix, not Drought. While I would be receptive to banning Drought as universally broken in Little Cup, if something stupid was to receive Drought, such as Caterpie, we can say that the crux of using shitmon for Drought is too much for the benefits that Drought provides, as we have to contend with Snover and Hippopotas to maintain it.

2) The Pokemon that are banned "due to Speed Boost" are banned due to a combination of traits. As we can basically assume Speed Boost as a whole is not a broken ability, we must consider the banned Pokemon as a whole. Yanma, with its excellent dual STABs, 4x resistance to Fighting, incredible Speed, access to Hypnosis, reliable recovery, good bulk with Eviolite, and access to Speed Boost makes Yanma broken. Carvanha, thanks to his excellent dual STABs, insane mixed offenses, great Speed, and access to Speed Boost make it broken. Their banning cannot solely be attributed to Speed Boost. It's a combination of factors that include Speed Boost. Thus, I don't believe we can subjectively suggest Speed Boost is the end all be all of these Pokemon--if we banned Air Slash and Hypnosis on Yanma, Waterfall and Crunch from Carvanha, or Drain Punch from Meditite, but kept everything else, I can guarantee they would not be considered broken. Should we do this?

Third: We must accept the policy ramifications that occur due to accepting this suspect. We must accept the pains of beginning suspecting again so close to XY. Furthermore, by bringing this suspect up, we would most likely find other abilities and such that we would want to suspect, making it very possible that suspecting would be occurring all of the way up to XY's inception, and having to focus both on BW2 and XY at the same time. That would be a nightmare. Finally, we need to consider BW2 revamps and the current activity of LC C&C. We just went through a fuck ton of revamps--we would have to go through just as many, based on these two additions (assuming Speed Boost gets unbanned, and Yanma + Carvanha enter the tier). We don't have the "resources" to do so, leaving our currently mostly updated analyses updated right before we transition to another generation, thus possibly leaving them permanently outdated.

This is a subjective tiering nightmare that forces us to adopt new policies regarding LC tiering, and forces us to accept a ton of things that I don't think makes this even slightly worth it as a consideration. I disagree with Speed Boost's worth meeting any of the conditions I listed above. Just because we're bored of Little Cup does not mean we throw everything out the window. Ultimately, the decision rests on mine and Elevator Music's shoulders. Neither of us, for the reasons I have listed, believe this is a good idea.
 
Interesting discussion.

I think blarajan makes a point though. It's probably better to leave everything how it is considering XY is just around the corner.

That said, I do think there are a pocket of abilities which are outright dumb (like Moody). Shadow Tag, Speed Boost and Prankster all come to mind as being far too good (even if the pokemon using it itself is mediocre). Either way though, I'm not the one making the decisions about these and, aside from Prankster, I'm pretty much fine with the metagame.

As an aside though, I was shocked that evasion clause didn't translate from the other metagames in its entirety. The lack of Sand Veil + Snow Cloak ban really disappointed me, even if they are irrelevant.
 

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