Hi everyone, with a Sleep suspect test in RBY UU happening imminently, I thought that now would be a good time to publish a post dedicated to trying to make RBY UU an official tier on Smogon once again. Thanks to May, as she wrote a bunch of this.
Brief History Lesson:
RBY UU was originally an official tier on Smogon when it was just beginning. The original RBY UU was structured similarly to GSC and ADV UU, where BL was a strange hodgepodge of things that were "almost standard" or too powerful for UU. You can see evidence of that in an archived tier list here, which was actually used for some on-site RBY UU Tournaments (namely these two with another one that is lost to the sands of time). However, as time went on, these tournaments kind of fell by the wayside, and so did Smogon's RBY tiering as a whole. In 2011, in response to RBY 2k10's tiering project paying more attention to RBY than Smogon, as well as its flawed nature, Hipmonlee removed the BL tier and ceded authority to off-site communities. In doing this, Smogon discarded its RBY UU. However, in the past decade, circumstances have changed significantly, and this history-rich tier deserves to be given another chance.
RBY UU, in its modern form, has existed since roughly 2010 on the RBY 2k10 site. During this time, it was a playable "BL" tier, but if we translate this into Smogon's tiering jargon, it was effectively our UU, just with Wrap banned. Indeed, BL was intended to be playable, was played, and had a very similar Pokemon list to modern UU. These tiers were passed between Pokemon Online and Pokemon Perfect before settling back on Smogon in May 2015 once it began its own RBY re-tiering project. This tier has seen scattered play over the years, but ever since around 2019, its playerbase has exploded and seen significant support by numerous sectors of Smogon. In fact, it is seeing more tournament sign-ups (and tournaments in general) than many UU old gens, and some players have even solo-mained the tier to success. See UUSD II, UUSD III, UUFPL, and UUFPL II: this isn't just lightning in a bottle, it's sustained growth that is showing no sign of going down.
RBY UU Today:
Many efforts have been made to ensure RBY UU follows Smogon's tiering policy. We have run three suspect tests thus far with others under consideration; namely, tests for Dragonite, Agility + Partial Trapping, and Sleep. While the first was indeed flawed, the second was perfectly within shiloh's guidelines and the third is being run in the same exact way. Additionally, Council Votes on Lapras, Victreebel, and Slowbro (in one slate) have been enacted. It should also be noted that the Dragonite suspect test vote was labeled as "official" by someone (I don't know who) when the official/unofficial distinction was made. Because of this, I labeled the Agility + Partial Trapping suspect test vote "official" as well, especially since it followed the rules set forth by shiloh in the aforementioned post to the letter, unlike the Dragonite suspect test. Since no one seemed to mind RBY UU suspect tests being labeled official before, I hope that going forward we can make these tests "officially official" instead of being unofficial but labeled as official, starting with the upcoming Sleep vote.
Regardless, over the past year+, RBY UU has been engaging in active tiering with an experienced council filled with notable tournament players, and the suspect tests have been well-received as the methodology has improved and worked under Smogon guidelines. This, along with the tier's history, makes me think that RBY UU is deserving of being restored to its former status as an official tier.
Tiering Contributor:
If RBY UU is granted official status, that means that users will be able to earn Tiering Contributor by participating in tiering action. I'm not going to provide a full list of voters that could use RBY UU as part of their Tiering Contributor votes, but here is a full list of users that would earn the badge from RBY UU contributions alone (assuming that the people I have listed for Sleep suspect test actually vote in the Sleep suspect test since they're qualified):
phoopes (Tier Leader)
kjdaas (Dragonite suspect, APT suspect, first council slate, Sleep suspect)
Shellnuts (Dragonite suspect, APT suspect, first council slate, Sleep suspect)
Volk (Dragonite suspect, APT suspect, first council slate, Sleep suspect)
May (Tiering Contributor Alumnus, while never "officially" a tier leader like I am, May was in charge of the tier before me)
As you can see, there are already a few Tiering Contributors if we consider the tier official, and these numbers will grow. There are a bunch of users sitting at two or three votes in RBY UU alone (again assuming they vote in Sleep suspect test), and we are planning further suspects down the line, such as a Lapras test. Official support would give dedicated RBYers another path to badge status on Smogon while not compromising the integrity of the Tiering Contributor badge. While significant improvements have been made, we are always looking for new ways to continue RBY's integration into Smogon, and this feels like a good way to do it!
Conclusion:
This post was intended to demonstrate that RBY UU is not just a history-rich tier, but a success story that other official old gen lower-tiers should look towards. This tier was rebuilt from the ground up despite being abandoned on Smogon over a decade ago, and I think it will continue to fare well for years to come. Given this, I and others in the RBY Community believe it is time for Smogon to once again embrace UU as official, giving it the prestige it deserves to continue being successful from the administrative level.
Thanks for your consideration, and thanks for reading!
Brief History Lesson:
RBY UU was originally an official tier on Smogon when it was just beginning. The original RBY UU was structured similarly to GSC and ADV UU, where BL was a strange hodgepodge of things that were "almost standard" or too powerful for UU. You can see evidence of that in an archived tier list here, which was actually used for some on-site RBY UU Tournaments (namely these two with another one that is lost to the sands of time). However, as time went on, these tournaments kind of fell by the wayside, and so did Smogon's RBY tiering as a whole. In 2011, in response to RBY 2k10's tiering project paying more attention to RBY than Smogon, as well as its flawed nature, Hipmonlee removed the BL tier and ceded authority to off-site communities. In doing this, Smogon discarded its RBY UU. However, in the past decade, circumstances have changed significantly, and this history-rich tier deserves to be given another chance.
RBY UU, in its modern form, has existed since roughly 2010 on the RBY 2k10 site. During this time, it was a playable "BL" tier, but if we translate this into Smogon's tiering jargon, it was effectively our UU, just with Wrap banned. Indeed, BL was intended to be playable, was played, and had a very similar Pokemon list to modern UU. These tiers were passed between Pokemon Online and Pokemon Perfect before settling back on Smogon in May 2015 once it began its own RBY re-tiering project. This tier has seen scattered play over the years, but ever since around 2019, its playerbase has exploded and seen significant support by numerous sectors of Smogon. In fact, it is seeing more tournament sign-ups (and tournaments in general) than many UU old gens, and some players have even solo-mained the tier to success. See UUSD II, UUSD III, UUFPL, and UUFPL II: this isn't just lightning in a bottle, it's sustained growth that is showing no sign of going down.
RBY UU Today:
Many efforts have been made to ensure RBY UU follows Smogon's tiering policy. We have run three suspect tests thus far with others under consideration; namely, tests for Dragonite, Agility + Partial Trapping, and Sleep. While the first was indeed flawed, the second was perfectly within shiloh's guidelines and the third is being run in the same exact way. Additionally, Council Votes on Lapras, Victreebel, and Slowbro (in one slate) have been enacted. It should also be noted that the Dragonite suspect test vote was labeled as "official" by someone (I don't know who) when the official/unofficial distinction was made. Because of this, I labeled the Agility + Partial Trapping suspect test vote "official" as well, especially since it followed the rules set forth by shiloh in the aforementioned post to the letter, unlike the Dragonite suspect test. Since no one seemed to mind RBY UU suspect tests being labeled official before, I hope that going forward we can make these tests "officially official" instead of being unofficial but labeled as official, starting with the upcoming Sleep vote.
Regardless, over the past year+, RBY UU has been engaging in active tiering with an experienced council filled with notable tournament players, and the suspect tests have been well-received as the methodology has improved and worked under Smogon guidelines. This, along with the tier's history, makes me think that RBY UU is deserving of being restored to its former status as an official tier.
Tiering Contributor:
If RBY UU is granted official status, that means that users will be able to earn Tiering Contributor by participating in tiering action. I'm not going to provide a full list of voters that could use RBY UU as part of their Tiering Contributor votes, but here is a full list of users that would earn the badge from RBY UU contributions alone (assuming that the people I have listed for Sleep suspect test actually vote in the Sleep suspect test since they're qualified):
phoopes (Tier Leader)
kjdaas (Dragonite suspect, APT suspect, first council slate, Sleep suspect)
Shellnuts (Dragonite suspect, APT suspect, first council slate, Sleep suspect)
Volk (Dragonite suspect, APT suspect, first council slate, Sleep suspect)
May (Tiering Contributor Alumnus, while never "officially" a tier leader like I am, May was in charge of the tier before me)
As you can see, there are already a few Tiering Contributors if we consider the tier official, and these numbers will grow. There are a bunch of users sitting at two or three votes in RBY UU alone (again assuming they vote in Sleep suspect test), and we are planning further suspects down the line, such as a Lapras test. Official support would give dedicated RBYers another path to badge status on Smogon while not compromising the integrity of the Tiering Contributor badge. While significant improvements have been made, we are always looking for new ways to continue RBY's integration into Smogon, and this feels like a good way to do it!
Conclusion:
This post was intended to demonstrate that RBY UU is not just a history-rich tier, but a success story that other official old gen lower-tiers should look towards. This tier was rebuilt from the ground up despite being abandoned on Smogon over a decade ago, and I think it will continue to fare well for years to come. Given this, I and others in the RBY Community believe it is time for Smogon to once again embrace UU as official, giving it the prestige it deserves to continue being successful from the administrative level.
Thanks for your consideration, and thanks for reading!
