So I’m sure many of you have read that
AM has stepped down as moderator. I’m one of the two who has taken his place and
Celticpride asked me if I could be the one of us to be more hands on with the VR thread so I said OK.
I’m not gonna be exactly like AM with how I handle the thread, so I’ll leave some of my thoughts here which may give you a better idea of how to make posts that won’t get deleted.
1. One liners are kind of a no brainer they don’t really add to the discussion they are normally some kind of nitpick or minor correction. I’ll be deleting them unless they come from other OU mods / VR team.
2. This thread isn’t the place for petty arguments. Insulting one another isn’t okay let’s focus on nominations, if you disagree about something please handle it in a civil manner and do so within the context of this thread (i.e. your nom of X to move to Y rank rubs me the wrong way because of Z metagame trend).
3. If a VR member asks you to move on, move on. Posts after that will probably be deleted. An example of a post that would not is Branflakes’ most recent post since he was one of the creators of a successful Shedinja team and his opinion is valued on the matter even though the discussion was deemed dead. His post also didn’t elicit any more responses on the matter.
4. Also if VR member asks me to delete posts I will do so. It would most likely be for one of the above reasons
5. If your posts are incomprehensible I will probably delete them.
6. If you post in response to posts that will be or are deleted, your post will be deleted as well.
7. If you post a nomination of an unranked pokemon to be ranked without replays I will delete your post. [added in as of 10-13-15, don't know how I forgot this one]
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Now I want to get into the slightly more subjective side. I don’t want to kill discussion since this thread is meant to foster metagame discussion but I want to give an idea of what I see as quality nominations vs bad ones so that (hopefully) posting quality can improve and if not at least I can say I told you why when I delete posts I think aren’t fostering any kind of good discussion.
Posts of the following format are totally unhelpful:
Diggersby – Agree with rise. one sentence
Mamoswine – Agree with drop. one sentence
Etc
Your opinions are something that the VR team wants to see but please provide sufficient reasoning (see: more than one sentence). I will probably delete posts like this in the future.
Also please keep in mind that stats and abilities are generally
not good nomination arguments. The recent Camerupt nomination is kind of an example of a nomination I don’t think is very good because it focuses on what it does as a standalone pokemon without considering how it interacts with the metagame (in fairness, this post was well formatted and very comprehensible so I would not delete a post like this). We are all capable of seeing what pokemon can do what, so these arguments basically amount to things that people already know. When making a nomination it is best to discuss the pokemon’s place within the metagame. This means taking into account recent trends – examples of which would be things like Clefables tending to run T-Wave on MG CM sets.
With this in mind, I’ll give a pair of examples.
Example of a bad nomination:
Mega Gallade to A
Mega Gallade is fast, strong and can set up Swords Dance to break through a lot of walls. It has nice coverage options like Knock Off and Ice Punch to deal with things that might otherwise wall it.
The reason this nomination is bad is because it speaks about Gallade as a standalone pokemon and doesn’t really talk about its place in the metagame at all. The first sentence is something that everybody knows. If Helmet Chomp was mentioned as a target of Ice Punch, this would make the argument slightly better because it is addressing a metagame trend. The other reason this nomination is bad is because it is nominating a pokemon to jump multiple ranks at once. Bar the case of new moves or hidden ability releases (i.e. Gatr and Serperior), please try to make nominations of one subrank at a time. Generally the VR team hasn’t overlooked something to the point that it needs to jump multiple subranks. Exceptions can occur like regular Metagross and Nidoking recently jumping a couple ranks at once but this is a much rarer occurrence.
Example of a good nomination:
Raikou to A
Raikou’s ability to check electric types and fit onto offensive teams is very valuable in the current metagame, because typical ground types on offense are vulnerable ice coverage. Its Calm Mind set has the ability to put a lot of pressure on opposing offensive builds when it sets up on things like Heatran and Thundurus, and its general ability to check Manaphy which is one of the major forces in the metagame helps its viability as well.
This nomination doesn’t really talk about Raikou’s stats or abilities; it focuses on where it fits into the metagame. It explains why current metagame trends favor it. It does actually talk about a move – this is different than stats or abilities (pokemon have fewer abilities than moves so this doesn't happen with abilities as much) because sometimes a move can become popular or relevant in the metagame because of trends. In this case CM helps Raikou apply pressure on the opposing team rather than simply check stuff (AV) and it avoids the prediction reliance of Specs.
I will probably delete some bad nominations if they are especially poor, but for the most part I’m not trying to censor you.
Last thing to keep in mind is that viability is fluid. This is an interconnected web of pokemon it isn’t a food chain. There is no pokemon that it all revolves around that has a fixed rank – anything can change at any time if the metagame changes in such a way that can account for it.
Anyway I’ll probably leave a link to this post in my signature so it’s easier to locate for future reference if you want an idea of how to make posts that won’t get deleted. If VR team wants me to add or remove anything from this post they are free to let me know and of course I am looking forward to working with them in keeping this thread running smoothly.