An Ideal Metagame

[Amethyst]

Reviewing the pages around the mess hall of argument known as Smogon, I see a recurring notion of "creating an ideal metagame."
I'm curious about just what this means.
I'm just going to go based on their recent actions- and great, ban inconsistent for it's evasion. The luckhax factor is whatever, and it kinda creates a whatever sort of battle.
When we get into the combination of Drizzle and Swift Swim, I have a problem with this. And before any of you go off saying it's just because I'm a rainfag, which, guilty as charged- that's not the reason. In all honestly, I'd have just as much of a problem as if they decided to ban Sandstream with Sand Rush or Clorophyll and Drought.

I really don't want this to be a debate about Drizzle/Swift Swim. Rather, my issue is with the way in which they're banning these things, and why.

The why is this... concept of an Ideal Metagame that I see people are saying popped up at the end of gen 4. I've never really cared much for Smogon, to be honest- so I wasn't around when this idea was conceived. Therefore, I may have some misconceptions about it; correct me if so.

From what I observe from the current discussion though, it seems Swift Swim teams (not just rain teams, but specifically swift swim) are a higher threat because they have decent stats combined with a STAB power-boost combined with great multitude along with their variety that allows for them to have such good synergy. In short, it's basically everything you could want in a team.

However, counters exist. In a typical setting, countering this is accounts for the increase in usage of those counters, which warrant counter-counters, and thus the metagame itself is created. Counters exist, and their creative usage and discovery is what will take the growth of the metagame itself to its next phase.

A hypothetical extension of this growth:
The counters become commonplace enough that such a team is practically no longer viable. It falls out of use. Suddenly people begin to notice that you don't see Swift Swim teams so much anymore, and the counters begin to fall out of use. Later on down the road, some guy says, "You know, these counters aren't used so much anymore. I think a swift swim team might do pretty good." They use one. People see its working and try to use theirs more too, but other people already know how to counter it from before- and while the strategy may regain some of its former popularity, it will not see the same usage as it did before.

That is what a metagame [b]is[/b]. In a sense, it's just Rock-Paper-Scissors, trying to find what works best at a given time in the trends of the competitive environment.

Smogon here diverges from this. Smogon has the banning-doors open- It's something okay to do now- because the new generation has started, and we've suddenly developed a practice of throwing random Pokemon up to OU at the end of Gen 4. They are continuing this practice as a precedent enabled by the fact that it is a new generation with a metagame obviously lacking in refinement.

But as I see it, this is a permanent and unnecessary solution to a temporary problem- and many more problems like this will continue to arise so long as Smogon feels that it is perfectly okay to continue the trend of looking at bans as a solution to everything. If Swift Swim goes, then they'll take a shot at whatever the next trend is- Sandstream + Sand Throw, I'd guess. And after that, who knows, maybe Clorophyll. And they can keep knocking off strategies calling them broken, just going to the next trend to the next for as long as they decide to consider the metagame in an unfinished state.

There are really two possibilities. Either they figure this out and stop seeing banning everything as the solution soon, or they don't, and this practice continues until they reach their ideal metagame.

In the former case, it is a matter of time, and how much time passes between when they consider the metagame passable is the sole thing that will dictate what and how many pokemon, abilities, etc become banned.

In the latter case, we have to look forward to the hypothetical Ideal Metagame. The way I see this, if the next strongest and next strongest strategies to the end, or at least to the point where the difference is unnoticeable. The approximation of that hypothetical point is a highly controlled environment wherein restrictions are placed so heavily that everything is equal- with no more advantage over the rest of the metagame than any other pokemon or strategy (because then it would just be banned if it was better, you see?). This means in choosing your team it is again a Rock-Paper-Scissors effect, but among the stagnant teleological idealism instead of in trends over time.


Personally speaking, I would rather not grind everything out the game just to be locked into the same old same old until the next release from GameFreak- no matter how balanced or idealistic it may be. Now I understand that this is an extreme scenario. But this is the path that they are beginning to walk down.

I will not have Reborn walk that path with them. We have already created our own tiers long before they have even begun to, and now we are organizing our own strategies and sets based of of those. To my knowledge, also, nobody has declared Smogon the official end-all authority nor do they have the right to believe themselves that.

Therefore, I'm saying this now- Reborn will no longer be following their logistics. If anyone has a problem with that, let's hear about it.
[/random thoughts]

[Ikaru]

tl;dr: We don't like Smogon, they're acting hastily and molding everything the way they want it to be instead of letting things work out. A swift ban is the quickest solution to anything. See: Extreme League.

The ideal metagame you speak of is not unlike the Laissez-faire idea in economics, nor the social darwinism theory; Leave it alone and let things handle themselves, and stuff that works will rise up, stuff that doesn't will die out. You want a "survival of the fittest" metagame, yes? In this case, we speak of weather, namely Rain. Obviously enough, it's already taken over. Limitations are fine, but banning ANYTHING entirely solves nothing. Counters exist, people are just too lazy to find and use them. Shadow Tag Shandera was banned almost immediately, when a simple Shed Shell ruins it. Minus Shadow Tag, nobody knows what they would do with their precious chandelier. And Inconsistent? It's entirely based on luck. If it lowers an important stat (which is more than likely), you wait until it comes back or you die. If Inconsistent didn't raise Evasion -and even then, it's a matter of luck to deal with- nobody would care about it. I've said this earlier. But nobody likes that so, hey, ban it. What else, what else... Eh, I guess that's all that matters. The Swift Swim thing is ridiculous; I think that's been covered already, more than enough. Everything has its counters, and Swift Swim is no exception. They're destroying a combo that was the only thing letting a few Pokemon even be useable (Ex: Armaldo, Tsunbeaa). Now Rain teams will become even more specific and predictable.

... This is what they want, I'm sure. It's not a bad concept but they're going about it the wrong way.
But, whatever, I have weird opinions; Erufuun and Doryuuzu are nothing to me and Ditto is my worst nightmare.

If what you mean by all this, Ame, is that we're doing our own thing regardless of what the leading authority (read: overcentralized little- ... you get it) says... well, I've always done that. All for it. In fact, I made it a point NOT to play OU 99% of the time in 4th gen for that very reason. I was sick of seeing Heatran, Azelf, Zapdos, Scizor and Blissey on every team. And yet I dealt with it and won quite a few times to boot.
It exists, use it. That's what I think. People will always have something to complain about.

[Geo]

Reborn will never be like Smogon, we're pretty much been ahead of them in the metagame department since the 5th gen started in PO(other then we didn't ban Inconsistent from being used on the server) Sure they have Wifi and Dream world, but we made a whole complete Tier list with NU-Ubers. I quit smogon in 2007 cause of the over population of noobs and they were thinking they were the shit back then too. They ban Latios over a Spec Set..............No joke, OVER ONE DAMN SET. They ban Salamence saying it had some chemistry with RAYQUAZA, RAYFUCKINGQUAZA!!! Your kidding right? Your going to compare Something like Salamence to Rayquaza Who has fucking Priority and shit >>. Seriously, their excuse is always "what the population says" >> Thats their excuse for everything.

The only things I agree with being ban in Gen 5:
Inconsistent
Darkrai
Manaphy
Deoxys(Normal),S and A
Skymin

Okey Good job smogon but half your population say Shadow tag Shandera should be ban, K see, Its not that overwhelming if you prepare for it. but your listening to people saying "its broken, Its too strong, its hard to beat."

K so half your fucking Population pretty much uses frail ass pokemon with no wall or tank at all on the team. If you send out a decent Tank or wall it'll plays pussy or try to foolishly attack it, it pretty much short of options on what to do and it thinks harder with Hazards on the ground, with nothing it can run into before it gets counter (Implyingif your opponent have 3 or less pokemon and none can't take a hits or can only live 2 hits) Its basicly fucked. other scarfs users pose a threat to it and your team unless your predict right >> So whats your point in banning?



Swift swim + Drizzle, Klol >> I read the post and I see a bunch of people complaning about it, only a few mention Trick room, and Other weather, even the weather moves. It would've been better to limit the amount of sweepers with swift swim you could have on a team, like the limit would be like 2 since it has an assload of sweepers and half your team needs to provide coverage since 3 of your pokemon are water typed, that I know but still a limitation would've been way better then banning the whole combination.

[Bullet]

Now before I start my long winded rant, response, etc. I'll just say this. I am by no means going against or for what Ame says by Reborn straying from Smogon, I am merely stating what I feel needs to be stated and responding to what I feel needs a response from me.

When you talk about something like this, you really have to deep dig and get down to the facts.
First of all, Pokémon is not an incredibly intricately balanced game that the developers carefully designed and everything. That's what Smogon and everyone else has been doing, with all the competitive stuff. And because this is not an intricately balanced game, there will be mechanics with inherent flaws. There will be mechanics that are unbalanced when used in a certain way.
Second, although the game is unbalanced, it is by no means completely disfunctional and virtually any mechanic, has a counter. The question thus, is, how do you define something as having incredibly specific counters, or being insanely hard to counter once a designated counter or check is removed, to be "broken"? Where do you draw the line for things such as, Shadow Tag Shandera? This is where no matter what, bias and personal experience will come into play for the group that is making said decision. Smogon, and the people on it, are no exception. They are trying to make decisions to the best of their ability, and no matter how much you despise them, loathe them, you have to look back and recall how inherently flawed the game is without such small tweaks and bans. Now then, let's look at Ame's hypothetical extension. According to this hypothetical the basic idea is with so many counters floating around, a type of team such as Swift Swim falls out of use. As a result, the counters fall out of use. Then, the theme is rediscovered due to its counters fading away, restarting the cycle. But what is this really accomplishing in terms of metagame growth? Ame says that the strategy may not regain its former glory and usage, but this isn't always the case. When a particulary effective or deadly strategy, rain for example, is established, it's not simply going away because there are counters of it. For then, is it no natural to morph the strategy, to include ways of countering the counters? But a team is not simply going to be, rain, or rain counter. There will be ways do beat rain without having such specific counters. But once again, will this always be the case? Here we must revisist the above question, where do you draw the line? What is the distinction between something you can counter and something that is so ridiculous you need to make an entire team just to counter it? The obvious answer is, if other team strategies can flourish with the presence of this "overpowered" strategy, it must not be too overpowered. Once again, this brings us back to one of our original points. Whoever sets out to determine whether this strategy or mechanic can be deemed "broken" will most definitely make a biased conclusion. But what else is there? This isn't a factual process. So Smogon, is hardly different from us in our banning or abstinence of such. We will use our own judgment and experiences to make a decision. So, in essence, we are another Smogon. Any group testing suspects, making their own tiers, is a Smogon in some way. And when they stray from the literal Smogon, they are making their own metagame with their tiering.

[N8theGr8]

Rain isn't a problem because nothing in rain can counter Nattorei, one of the most prominent Pokemon in the 5th Generation. Don't say otherwise, you're just kidding yourself. This is why I've never seen rain as a problem, as MasterFetish/KingFetish is probably the most common Pokemon on any of my teams.

The problem with Sandstorm is that first, you're not using a generally bad Pokemon to activate it. Hippowdon and Tyranitar both are fantastic on their own, and when you're building a team around their ability it just gets even better. Politoed and Ninetales are decent, but nowhere near those two. In addition, Sandstorm has way more options than Rain as for sweepers, due to many Pokemon having things like Sand Veil, Sand Power, Sand Throw, and the other sand abilities I might or might not be missing. Right off the bat, there's Doryuuzu, Garchomp, Randorosu, Gliscor, Cacturne, and Muurando. And those are just the Pokes that get fun boosts in SS, not things that don't take damage from it. Actually, to be honest, Rain could do better than it does if people decided to get their heads out of their asses and use things other than the all-too-standard Politoed, Kingdra, Zapdos/Jolteon, Nattorei/Erufuun, filler sweeper, filler sweeper team. It's unoriginal and makes me think you can't build a team for yourself. I'd be all for people who use weather provided [i]every[/i] rain team didn't use Kingdra and [i]every[/i] sandstorm team didn't use Doryuuzu. Neither are all that great and both can be countered easily.

I see the perfect metagame as a metagame that isn't broken. Right now, the metagame is pretty nice as I haven't run into anything that's dominating over everything else. Things like Ditto get annoying really fast, but Ditto can be coped with and really isn't all that broken to begin with.

Also, I'm just wondering why smogon would ban Drizzle + Swift Swim when Doryuuzu is flat out more threatening in Sandstorm than any Swift Swim sweeper. At +2 Doryuuzu is stupidly hard to take out and can't be revenge killed because of it's ridiculous Speed. Sorry to rain lovers, but Doryuuzu in Sandstorm > Kingdra in Rain. Kingdra may have more bulk, but Doryuuzu has raw power, a better set up move, and more threatening overall. Both, as I've said so many times before, can be dealt with and neither should be banned.

My team consisting of Ferrothorn (Nattorei), Garchomp, Gyarados, Conkeldurr (Roobushin lol), Heatran, and Alakazam that I use competitively on my Acekard is undefeated after like 14 battles. I've faced weather of all kinds and it never has been an issue; in fact, [i]sun[/i] has given me the most trouble out of any weather. If I can deal with it, so can you; I'm not even that great of a battler.

In short: Perfect metagame is where nothing is broken and everything can be countered, Drizzle + Swift Swim shouldn't be banned at all, and I am completely disregarding Ame's saying "DON'T MAKE THIS A DISCUSSION ABOUT SWIFT SWIM".

--

I decided to edit in what I feel is broken within a balanced metagame and, more importantly, why it's broken. Also, I'll be listing what has been considered broken that I feel isn't broken by any means of the term.

BROKEN:

~Manaphy - inb4 rainhate. Rain isn't why I hate this thing though. I hate it because it has good stats, good coverage, and gets the incredibly broken +3 boosting Tail Glow. Plus, it has good Speed and decent enough bulk so it can tear things apart. It's tough to counter due to being able to kill a hell of a lot at +3, raping an unprepared team. Other things that set up can still be stopped; it's much harder to stop Manaphy.

~Shadow Tag Shandera - The Pokemon I've always felt is broken. First, I'd like to point out how everyone always says Shandera is set up fodder after you kill something. However, that doesn't matter. Why? Because you can do that with any revenge killer. In fact, sometimes you don't have to lose a Pokemon to get a free turn against a choiced Pokemon due to immunities/resistances. But guess what? You can't do that with Shandera. It has the ability to pick off what it wants and then flee, while you sit there unable to do anything to stop it. Choice Pokemon that rely on Fighting/Normal moves are more hesitant to pick them solely because of Shandera being (or having been) everywhere. When I heard it was banned, I was overjoyed.

~Deoxys-A / Deoxys Normal - They're stronger, frailer Mewtwos. Deoxys-A is godly powerful and can decimate 90% of the standard metagame with its fucking awesome movepool. Deoxys trades power for being able to live through things like Mach Punch. Both I feel are too strong for OU and can function well in Ubers.

~Skymin - A sweeper with Serene Grace Air Slash as its prime move. Except this thing can outspeed a huge amount of Pokemon. Oh, and it gets a 120 STAB move with a positive side effect. With a scarf, this thing can rape. Even without, it can rape if it gets a Sub up. It's just too hard to find a way to beat a Pokemon when you're not doing anything 60% of the time, which is a number that can love you or hate you.

NOT BROKEN
~Inconsistent - I am a strong believer that Inconsistent is an ability that never gave anyone trouble. It was given to some of the worst Pokemon in the game, bar Smeargle who's got awful stats to begin with, that relies solely on hax. It's the one thing that was banned that I flat out disagree with, although I'm very sure there's plenty more from where this came from due to smogon's stubborn ways of only looking from their perspective of the metagame, which can be played so many ways that...actually, the fact that it can be played in so many different ways is what makes the metagame so fun.

[Ninpen]

Here's the thing.

It is no longer possible for one team to have counters to most everything, with the ridiculous amounts of threats 5th gen has brought us, and the resurgence of weather.

Ergo, banhappy to try to fix it. It won't work.

Edit: Oh, and uh N8. Heatran + Starmie w/ HP Fire (I've seen it quite a bit with the Nattorei threat now) rapes your team.

[Bullet]

[quote name='Doctor Octagonapus' post='10642' date='Feb 6 2011, 11:27 PM']Here's the thing.

It is no longer possible for one team to have counters to most everything, with the ridiculous amounts of threats 5th gen has brought us, and the resurgence of weather.[/quote]

I Disagree?????
Sure, it's impossible to counter all specific combinations, but not individual threats.

[Amethyst]

There's one line I really like from Bullet's massive text wall up there:
[quote name='Bullet' post='10636' date='Feb 6 2011, 09:28 PM']If other team strategies can flourish with the presence of this "overpowered" strategy, it must not be too overpowered.[/quote]
And as far as I know, there's nothing like that around.

Here's the bottom line for me, I guess:
This is Pokemon.
This is motherfucking Pokemon.
Six year olds play this.
It's one thing to go into depth on the logistics of winning battles what with damage calculations because those have firm roots in pure data.
But when we get to arguing the philosophical logistics and come across questions that go in the same circles as the big five of [i]legitimate[/i] philosophical debate, and pretty soon we start asking ourselves what is the meaning of playing Pokemon competitively- then I think we have a problem.
Or Smogon does anyway.

Bullet's right, in splitting away and creating our own set of rules and such we are no different than Smogon in that we have our own metagame. How we will differ is in not going overboard with this and treating it like WW3 is going to occur if everything isn't perfectly calculated.

It's a game. We'll take out what absolutely needs to be taken out for it to be fun, like games are supposed to be.
And we'll shoot anyone who tries to derive that statement in ways contrary to its intention.

[N8theGr8]

Anyone who says "Pokemon is a game," and "Smogon takes Pokemon too seriously," I completely and thoroughly agree with (in fact, it's what I agree with above anything about Pokemon). Smogon has made countless abusive decisions just because one Pokemon is "better" than another, a la Latias, Garchomp, and Salamence. Pokemon [i][b]isn't supposed to be perfectly balanced[/b][/i]. There's a line you have to draw with things like Deoxys-A that take the fun out of everything, but it all comes back to the fact that Pokemon is a game. It's like saying Michael Jordan should have been banned from basketball for being the best.

Do I have a problem with people who DO take Pokemon somewhat seriously and think their teambuilding through incredibly deeply? Of course not. That's passion. It's incredibly stupid once you're using power to manipulate a game just because it's a little bit unbalanced. Guess what? Salamence is better than Dragonite 99% of the time. Who cares? People still use Dragonite and and it can work really well, but Salamence is better for the most part. Note how in that Salamence-Dragonite comparison, both were OU last generation until Sally was banned for "over centralizing" the metagame. I thought that ban was the most bullshit of Gen 4 OU, above Garchomp and Latias who both honestly were still counterable in that metagame.

My only question to this is why is everyone just now noticing how incredibly stupid Smogon is with their banning of anything that is remotely broken? I have virtually no respect left for them due to their constant complaining over things that you should just "build a little bridge and get over". But why say anything now? To be honest, I'm really finding it too coincidental that AmethystStorm, the master of rain, only starts to complain about Smogon once his rain is in jeopardy. I've been angered countless times due to Pokemon like Salamence being banned and saying Smogon is just idiotic for doing so. Because...

[color=#000000;background:#000000;' onmouseover="this.style.color='#FFFFFF'" onmouseout="this.style.color='#000000']Pokemon is a game, like the one you just lost.[/color]

tl;dr: Smogon's stupid, but Ame's also stupid for only catching on to this once his favorite strategy could become Uber.

--

Doc, Heatran could give my team trouble if it's ballooned; otherwise I bring in my own Heatran in on a predicted Fire attack and Earth Power it's ass. My Heatran's scarfed so it'll outspeed. Also, Gyarados does well against Heatran because of immunity to Earth Power, Fire resist, and not taking super effective damage from HP Grass/Ice. Also, Gyarados has a good Special Defense anyway. Starmie...eh...Alakazam's Shadow Ball kills it. (I'm Sashed so I can come in on anything too) Also, Nattorei flat out walls it unless it's carrying HP Fire, which it never does because Surf/Boil Over, Ice Beam, and TBolt is epic coverage. Starmie's rare nowadays anyway and I've never seen one carrying HP Fire. Sure, it counters Nattorei, but other than that it's a wasted moveslot over Ice Beam which nails the all too common Dragons.

[Amethyst]

[quote name='N8theGr8' post='10654' date='Feb 7 2011, 01:42 PM']To be honest, I'm really finding it too coincidental that AmethystStorm, the master of rain, only starts to complain about Smogon once his rain is in jeopardy[/quote]
I could pretty easily swap out one member of my team even if this did go through. I'm not one of the swift-swim spammers.
But that's not the point. In truth, you're right- it's not coincidence. I'm just now really looking into all of this because Geo drew the subject to my attention [i]because[/i] of the Swift Swim thing, and his knowing my affection for rain. I'd never really looked into the discussion on Smogon before [s]and thank god[/s] because it was not called to my attention.
But believe what you will. However, this is not what this topic is about. Carry on.

[Geo]

[quote name='TheScarletSword' post='10647' date='Feb 7 2011, 02:02 AM']I agree with just about every word of Ame's last post.

But in the end, it's Pokemon. It wasn't intended for us to play it like the Winter Olympics. It's meant for casual fun. Of course things are OP and unbalanced, Game Freak doesn't really focus on "competitive". The "competitive" community consists of the fans who organize the "metagame". It can be fun, but when you start, you know...

[b]taking it too seriously....[/b]

the fun can get sucked out really quickly. Just my two cents.

... << >> *runs*[/quote]

Why run Scarlet? Besides that is indeed the big picture here.

Example of why it is, Look at Inconsistent:

Game freak made Inconsistent for fun, Its still annoying by my standards and seriously unfair. If Smogon had any [b]legal[/b] contract with GameFreak at all, Inconsistent wouldn't have been made cause it would've went to Smogon first during the making of Gen 5 just to get approval(same for all the abilites) then back to to Game Freak with something saying "Don't make it"written on it with their excuse"The community says".



Even tho this leaves out the topic again.

[quote]Ame's also stupid for only catching on to this once his favorite strategy could become Uber.[/quote]
N8, ProTip:

Ame made his own rain in Gen 4 and the only swift swimmer he had was Kingdra and today in Gen 5 the only swiftswimmer he ever had was kingdra. Other pokemon on his team was Vaporeon, Rotom and Starmie who only vaporeon remins, he replaced the Star and the Motor with Erufuun and Espeon.He also have a Sharpedo and uses Slippy the toed who is needed to cause Drizzle, thats 6 pokemon if you count it and all with different abilities. So what strategy are you implying him to, He clearly doesn't spam swiftswimmers at all which brought up the ban that should've been limited or something instead of just ban all togather.