FlareBlitz
Relaxed nature. Loves to eat.
I can't say that I am unhappy about this outcome. Time to make good on my word and create a team based around simipour!
As per Smogon policy (badged-only link), this tier update will not take effect until July 1, since this is the last month before a usage-based tier update.Sand Stream is now offically banned from UU
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I have already sent Antar a PM requesting the removal of Sand Stream from the ladder, so that should be done soon.
Or you could just play boththe principles behind this ban disturb me enough that I'll probably switch back to OU.
The PO developers will take x amount of time implementing the changes into the code once the games are released, and the Smogon people will then take y amount of time switching to the new client. We'll be playing BW2 in x + y time.With that said, though, it bears asking: when will the B2W2 changes be added to the metagame? As soon as the games are released?
boo I forgot about that... this is why I wanted to get this done sooner :(As per Smogon policy (badged-only link), this tier update will not take effect until July 1, since this is the last month before a usage-based tier update.
I would also like to ask if there are any objections to removing Hippowdon from BL. I somehow doubt it's seriously broken with its released ability of Sand Force.
Now that would be all fine and dandy with me, except that Sand doesn't make the metagame lack centralization, nor is it overpowered. In fact, your senators even said some stuff along these lines while reasoning why Sand should be banned.Chou Toshio said:Anyway, these bans are made in order to prevent the game from centralizing around a mere handful of pokemon (we can note that 4th Gen OU has double the "OU" pokemon of 4th Gen Ubers). These bans almost always have to do with power.
Ginku said:After thinking about Sand for quite some time now, I've ultimately come to the conclusion that while it may not be "too much" to handle in the sense that it's close to unbeatable
PsYch071c said:Though sand has not quite held the same stranglehold on the UU tier as Deoxys-D or Hail
PsYch071c said:Sand may not be as popular as many other playstyles
PsYch071c said:Notice I did not say that sand is “broken” or “overpowered”. It is relatively easy to check, and it forces the opponent to waste their first teamslot on a baby hippopotamus.
SJCrew said:Sand itself, by contrast, is a competitive strategy that competitive players use, planning around their frankly obvious strengths and weaknesses. It's noticeably dwarfed in capabilities by past weather suspects that have set the bar for what crosses the line in UU, and its only real abuser is scarcely debated and universally agreed upon as fair when scrutinized. On top of that, it isn't even common enough to make grounds for centralization, which lends even less credence to the idea that it causes undue stress on UU players.
Overall, I don't think anyone is losing their shit over the best revenge killer in UU when they can nonchalantly put one or more of of Rhyperior, Cobalion, Aggron, Brozong, Gligar, or others on their team to mitigate this problem. Failing that, they can also take advantage of bad predictions with dangerous checks like Chandelure or Trick Room NP Cofagrigus, who are much harder to counter than any Stoutland.
Heysup said:OK, maybe I'm the only one who this has happened to but Sand teams are getting rarer and rarer. I haven't had a specific problem against them. Not even close to it, actually.
Sand has done nothing to stop me from using LO, Synthesis (even on the same sweeper), and the other moves you listed. It's not super common anymore, and if you find yourself spamming Synthesis or Morning Sun against a Sandstorm team you're not playing very effectively against it.
kokoloko said:The primary reason why a ban on Sand Stream is on the table is not because the playstyle is overpowering/broken
So, every single one of the senators said something about sand either not be overpowered or not being overcentralized except for FlareBlitz, who said that "I personally would find a sand-less metagame more fun." Not anything about being OP or OC, but more fun. That's not the reason why Smogon bans things (according to the article I linked to, at least). If the voters themselves don't feel that sand is OP or OC, then it shouldn't be banned. So in my mind, banning Sand Stream does not make sense at all.kokoloko said:None of these factors seem to be crucial to the metagame, and hence not worth banning sand to undo
@phoopies You missed the most crucial part, where he states that every ban is subjective, and we should aim to create a better metagame with every ban. I believed that banning sand would result in a better metagame, as I stated numerous times in my paragraph, so I voted to ban.ChouToshio said:Also, because I know it's going to come up, the above are just categories-- they do not clearly define why a thing is being banned. How much hax does it have to caused to get under Type A? How much usage/dominance does have to achieve to get under Type B?
Those questions are not for philosophy or terminology to define. That's up to the players, and their opinions-- their votes. By making bans, we are engineering a "better game," but what makes a game better is subjective. The only way to answer that, is with people's opinions. That's why we have the voting system.
I know you're not finished but it may be pointless to do so. Additionally, I disagreed with most of the senate but I'm still going to defend their decision.I'd like to point out this Smogon article about categorizing tiering bans. It says that the two types of bans Smogon. Type A is reducing the metagame's skill dependency. Type B is over-centralization. Now, we can all agree that Sand doesn't reduce the metagame's skill dependency; It's not like Sand results in more luck becoming involved. That would be the reason for just banning Sand Veil. The reason for Sand is general being banned would be Type B, or over-centralization. The definition of which (according to the article I linked to) is...
The "principles behind this ban" are present and enforced in every tier on Smogon. Sleep clause / species clause / evasion clause / ohko clause don't exist because those things are broken. They exist because the metagame is much more fun with them. That's the same guiding principle behind the senate's ban here (although you will note that I personally dissented because I didn't think the community was entirely convinced of our reasoning). I support the ban fully on grounds of principle.I've never played a sand team on ladder, but the principles behind this ban disturb me enough that I'll probably switch back to OU.
I think Aesoft will get the changes coded far sooner in pokemon showdown, if you want to play that new metagame as soon as possible. Don't quote me on that though.With that said, though, it bears asking: when will the B2W2 changes be added to the metagame? As soon as the games are released?
I fully support this.http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3464212I would also like to ask if there are any objections to removing Hippowdon from BL. I somehow doubt it's seriously broken with its released ability of Sand Force.
I'm going to post part of my PM to the other senators so that you guys can kind of understand where we're coming from here:Now that would be all fine and dandy with me, except that Sand doesn't make the metagame lack centralization, nor is it overpowered. In fact, your senators even said some stuff along these lines while reasoning why Sand should be banned.
So yeah, Jabba's interference didn't alter the result of the vote.18:57 upstart i do approve of the ban yes
I see his point. I mean it's kind of simple...."why do we think that"....I mean I saw way more opposition of the ban (even before we banned it) than not but yet we (and by we I mean some senators) still voted to ban it."I suppose, ultimately, we need to think back to why we want to change things in this metagame. It's because the metagame isn't as fun as it could be. Now, that's a pretty inflammatory sentence and it could be strawmanned with rebuttals like "well I think togekiss makes the metagame less fun so let's ban that", but ultimately that's the reason we're even having this conversation - we want to make things more fun for our playerbase. Given that, this is what we need to decide: Will our playerbase have more fun with sand stream in the metagame but with sand veil gone, or will it have more fun with the playstyle as a whole gone?
We know that quite a few players enjoy using sand stream, so we know that banning it will have an immediate negative impact on them. At the same time, we know that the viability of sand as a playstyle causes less diversity in the metagame, and limits the viability of fast, frail sweepers that are vulnerable to residual damage (like Azelf, Weavile, etc). Note that this was one of the reasons we banned Hail. And finally, we know that the missing a key move against Gligar due to factors entirely outside a player's control (i.e. missing a 100% accuracy move chosen specifically for its reliability) is uncompetitive and has no place in this (or any, honestly) metagame, so we can't exactly do nothing either.
With all that said...I mentioned earlier that removing sand as a whole from the metagame would make me, as a player, happier. As a senate member, I can't come up with a reason for why it's "broken" or "imbalanced" or "whatever"; I don't think it's any of those things simply because I tend to win against sand teams. But I do know that building my team such that it can win against sand teams prevents me from exploring options that I would otherwise be interested in exploring, such Simipour (don't laugh).
It's not a huge deal, you brought up some good points. I actually completely agree with you otherwise, if you were curious.Welp, that article was the whole basis for my reasoning. Didn't know it was out of date. I still feel that Sand Stream + Sand Veil should be the thing being banned, not just Sand Stream. Personally, I find the metagame more fun with sand involved, bar Sand Veil. Like kokoloko, I've also played PO's UU, and I prefer Smogon's with sand over PO's without it. If ya'll think that's what's best for the metagame, then you're entitled to that opinion.
Text book slippery slope fallacy. Also, your second point is a great argument against your first point.Combo bans set a terrible precedent for tiering by removing optimal conditions in which a Pokemon or field effect is most effective rather than evaluating them by the sum of its parts. The objective in question isn't even practical enough for gain to justify such a blatant breach in policy.
Do keep in mind that Drizzle/Swim was meant to be an exception. We have not extended these exceptions thusfar into UU weather effects and it would be beneficial for the sake of our own tiering policy to keep it that way.
I agree with a lot of your post but this is exactly what I think. If a game has meaning it is more full, more complete, and I care a fuckload more about something like that than something that is just stuff we're doing for minor inconveniences. I also strongly agree with that last paragraph I snipped in there.Competitive and fun are two different things. Amateurs soccer players play intramural soccer "for fun." They are not players who are in division 1 teams facing other college teams, where the stakes and skill requirement are higher.
I understand that we are playing Pokemon for fun, but you are crossing the line where competitiveness is being drastically reduced for the sake of fun. Reading your explanations to ban Sand Veil / Sandstream makes this all too clear.
<snip>
I know many have you dismissed Smogon's "outdated" philosophy of banning what's "broken," and embraced the "I will change the metagame the way I find to be fun." Yes, tiering is subjective. However, "what is broken," is a much more objective measurement, than "what I want." Because I certainly do not want others to decide what I want in a metagame. The new changes are certainly not fun for players who wanted to make use of Stoutland or a sand-based stall team.
I honestly think it's our own fault for flaunting "we're changing the metagame for fun" around (as much as we all deny it, it's what we're doing). The decision at hand did not (well obviously I kind of disagree with this here) make the metagame less competitive because it was still a competitive reason but we are not saying that. We have the responsibility of explaining this and we shouldn't keep up this charade of saying that we aren't using solely competitive reasons to ban something.Furthermore, this ban does not compromise the competitiveness of the tier as you seem to think it does. It changes the metagame, yes, but it does not make it any less competitive. Instead of having to prepare for sand teams you now have to prepare for all the threats that will arise from the lack of them. This is still just as competitive. In fact, I would argue that its more competitive, as the diversity of the tier has now increased.
Lastly, I really feel as if I should clarify this: this ban was done for what we perceive to be the overall betterment of the metagame, not purely because it's more fun. But even if it was, so fucking what? If you're not playing Pokemon to have fun, you're doing it wrong.
I'm not sure why I'm responding to this but I kind of take offense to it and I'm sure people without a fancy title would feel even worse. How is this relevant? It isn't. All it does is put some people up on a pedestal.Kokoloko said:For your information, two members of the OU council (and coincidentally senior staff) agreed with this ban. Both Jabba,who acted as the tiebreaker vote and has the exact same view on tiering as the people who voted to ban said, and Aldaron, who said he was much more comfortable with the idea of banning Sand Stream as opposed to Sand Veil because the latter is a part of he former.
Not sure if that was supposed to be all of us but I typed this out already......I don't think I'm beating any dead horses here anyway.Kokoloko said:Any further discussion you want to have on the subject should be directed to my inbox. I don't want to clutter this thread with an ultimately pointless argument.
I agree with this man.*snip*
Yes, a toxic/sand/subroost stalling gligar stalling me out by scoring misses is pretty fearsomePS: For the record, I feel that all this "sandstorm hate" came from the overbearing offensive presence of Stoutland (is a Sandstorm team without Stoutland scary to you?) Sand Veil and passive damage are NOT sufficient reasons to ban Sandstorm.
Why not ban Stoutland and call it a day?
I had been thinking about this a little too. I guess part of the problem here (the OU switch I mentioned earlier), and I'm sure many of the anti-Sand-ban people will agree, is that I feel ripped off. If Pokemon is really about having fun, then I'd be having *much* more fun if I were part of a direct voting process on what to ban or not ban, instead of having a council decide for me and the entire community.If that's going to be the basis on whether something gets banned or not, I'd rather have the whole community decide on that rather than just seven people.
A miss due to evasion boosts is absolutely the same as a move from naturally inaccurate moves such as Hydro Pump. They both make your move do no damage and they both display the message "Pokemon's attack missed!" on the screen. Not trying to change the weather is absolutely a risk one chooses to take. There is more to weather than auto-weather. I've used dedicated Rain teams before and peaked #1 on the ladder. I've used Rain Dance on Pokemon to counteract Sand, and let me tell you it works almost all the time. You can stop Scald burns through Heal Bell the same way you can stop Sand Veil misses with Rain Dance.kokoloko said:miss due to evasion boosts is not the same as a miss from naturally inaccurate moves such as Hydro Pump, nor is it the same as a burn from Scald. Why? The former cannot be controlled while the latter, at least in theory, can. You can play around Scald by using Natural Cure Pokemon or Heal Bell users. You can avoid misses from Hydro Pump by opting for the more accurate Surf duing teambuilding.
Clarification needed.Text book slippery slope fallacy. Also, your second point is a great argument against your first point.
Narrow bans are technically encouraged by our policy, by the way. Combo bans are just hyped up to the point where they seem to be in their own league of taboo bans.
I may be a nobody, but, um, wouldn't it be wise to have something as fundamental to how Smogon works like tiering policy at least somewhat transparent? I mean, I understand not having the masses vote--I was here during the Salamence ban and Raikou ban in Gen 4, and that was a clusterfuck--but that seems like a topic that should at least be visible to the public.There is currently a discussion going on behind closed doors about which tiering philosophy Smogon wants to follow. Until that decision is made (don't get your hopes up, it's going to take forever), the ban on sand in UU will stand.