np: ORAS UU Stage 7.3 - See No Evil | Baton Pass Suspect - see post #110

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Sam is currently away and Hikari is MIA again. Once one of them is back, I reckon they'll speak on that topic a bit further. Can't imagine they'd say no, but we won't actually know until either Sam's settled in at his new place or Hikari comes back.
 

warzoid

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Apparently a lot of people are salty that the noobs saved Hydreigon, so here are some stats for y'all to spin however you want.

Vote breakdown by GXE:
  • under 75: 11 ban, 14 stay
  • 75-80: 18 ban, 29 stay
  • 80-85: 28 ban, 27 stay
  • 85+: 12 ban, 3 stay
The elite players / AloBliss users were strongly pro-ban, but surprisingly the average players were more likely to vote stay than the "noobs."


Games played to get reqs:
  • 100+ games played: 15 ban, 19 stay
  • 150+ games played: 4 ban, 8 stay
  • 200+ games played: 3 ban, 4 stay

Would a GXE requirement have resulted in a Hydreigon ban?

Yes, if the cutoff were higher than 76.5 GXE. Anything lower would have resulted in a tie or no ban vote.
hydreigon.png

Edit for clarification: The games played stats are inclusive; the net impact of all voters with over 100 games played was 4 votes.
 
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Warzoid's analysis of this test is why I fail to see this suspect test as a good test. It does not represent the mindset of the majority of players that should have been voting in this test. Including the users that took over 100 games to get reqs really skewed the results, and now Hydreigon's been allowed to say in UU. I don't necessarily think this is a massive problem, but it certainly doesn't help the current situation. I agree that Celebi - a much bigger problem - has made Hydreigon significantly worse, but I do not agree that Celebi should shoulder all of the blame. Hydreigon has been a restricting factor in the UU metagame for a while. Taking away Alakazam made the non-scarf sets more viable. Taking away Salamence made all of its sets move viable. It just so happens that we got Celebi at around the same time of the Salamence ban and any credit that effect had on Hydreigon was largely ignored in favour of Celebi's effect.

Long story short, I don't agree with certain playstyles being forced into running combinations of Sylveon / Blissey / etc to handle Hydreigon. Hydreigon wasn't the biggest problem in the metagame, but removing it was a step in the right direction. Regardless, Hydreigon stays in UU. I do think we can learn something moving forward though:

57% of the good to very good users (>80% GXE) claimed Hydreigon was problematic enough to warrant a ban, whereas 60% of the average to lesser users (< 80% GXE) claimed it wasn't. I don't want to read like an elitist jackass, but which group do you think had a better idea of Hydreigon's effect on the metagame? In any other situation, had users with a GXE greater than 80 claimed one thing, but a larger group of users with a GXE of less than 80 claimed another, which of the two groups would be considered right? If you want to read this as me thinking that anyone under a GXE of 80 shouldn't have voted, that's not quite the point.

Consider the impact the 34 users with >100gp had on this test. By taking away the votes contributed by just this camp of voters, the gap of Hydreigon staying UU shrinks to 2 votes. The more you shrink this restriction to better visualize an "ideal" pool of voters (by say limiting to 70-80 games played, even 90gp), Hydreigon is banned from UU. What I'm trying to get at is without a cap on minimum GXE (or games played, they work both ways) or a more "difficult" b-value, you end up with these loud majorities of "lesser" players skewing test results. Players with a GXE lower than 76.5% shouldn't make suspect decisions. Period. I get that luck can be a factor (which is why I like a benchmark of 90gp at most, ideally around 70-80), but starting a suspect run over and finishing it in 60-70 games isn't difficult. A GXE cutoff of 76.5% results in a games limit of 94gp. For example, I was incredibly unlucky during the middle of my run, but still got reqs in less games played than the cutoff mentioned by warzoid. Very few notable players should therefore fall under that limit, so I see it as a non-issue if someone like myself doesn't hit a GXE above 76.5% during a suspect test, since you would lose out on like 2 votes at most.

As it stands, Underused is the only tier without a GXE limit on its tests. This is a problem, and this test demonstrates why. Until we start using weighted results based on GXE or Games played or set limits on GXE/GP, we can't continue running tests like this. Hydreigon should have been banned; the surprised reactions from a lot of the "do not ban" camp suggest this. Moving forward, UU needs to set a limit in and around the 77.5 GXE range and follow suit with other official tiers. Otherwise, what happens when (read: if) Celebi gets its suspect test and the same thing happens? Or Sylveon?

And I do understand the sentiments of wanting UU to be a community-inclusive tier: Smogon is in itself a community and every user should feel welcome and want to participate. But is maintaining that sentiment at the cost of the quality of tiering policy worth it? A bad decision was made here because we cater to the community as a whole instead of catering to a smaller group that plays this metagame at a higher level. Exclusive doesn't need to be a negative stance when you're trying to sort out the play-ability of a metagame. It's in part the reason kokoloko's system was so goddamned effective: decisions were made by top players to quickly (and successfully) produce a stable metagame. Establishing a limit on minimum GXE doesn't make our tiering policy as "behind closed doors" as the archaic council systems. It enforces a non-rigorous user voting standard and should be considered as a positive addition to our policy.

A lot of us just spent a fair bit of time laughing at Rarelyused for not banning Alomomola and suspecting Dugtrio instead, even though Alomomola will still remain a massive pain in the ass for their metagame. Meanwhile, we just did the same thing. The only difference being switching into Hydreigon is a crapshoot at best: the counterplay effectively revolves around having an answer to the Scarf set or "out-guessing" your opponent. Set a limit on minimum GXE and don't make the same mistake twice.
 
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MrAldo

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I dont think it is fair to make a "callout" like that just because the outcome wasnt the expected by most. Kind of a dick-ish move tbh, the rules of the suspect laddering were pretty clear. Next time do implement the GXE limits instead of publicly complaining about suspect results when this tier have been doing this method for a while and it is only a problem cause the outcome wasnt the "expected". What a ridiculous attitude to take.

RU as a tier has gone through this before (first Tyrantrum suspect for example, but we shut it and waited for the 2nd suspect test patiently and it got the boot) but as said, we were "secretly complaining" instead of publicly complaining. I guess UU doesnt have the luxury of a second suspect at this point tho but still the issues are somewhat related to share the thoughts.

The other option is move on and keep dealing with hydreigon the best we could, celebi is a far bigger constraining presence in my opinion that is far more guilty than hydreigon is.

A lot of us just spent a fair bit of time laughing at Rarelyused for not banning Alomomola and suspecting Dugtrio instead, even though Alomomola will still remain a massive pain in the ass for their metagame. Meanwhile, we just did the same thing.
Damn, thats some delicious irony if Ive ever seen one.
 
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Donphantastic

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I'm not sure if it is a call out post as much as it is a call for change. The point of UU being the only tier without a gxe or game limit for reqs is a fair one that needs to be addressed imo. While I agree with you that it sounded a bit abrasive I also feel its something that one way or another it needed to be said. Hopefully we can get a retest at somepoint maybe even after SuMo drops because apart from a few offenders this is a tier I rather enjoy.
 
I would hope that doesn't read like a call-out to either Sam or Hikari, it definitely wasn't intended as one. Considering their IRL schedules, it's fantastic that they still have time to lead UU and I'm grateful for the work they've done and the work they do. Instead, my post is a criticism on how painstakingly easy UU suspect tests are, since you can actually play 829 games and still get voting requirements. I'll admit and apologize that I have a problem with sounding abrasive - I try to word things without trying to come off as uncertain or soft on the issue. It's a consequence of taking a stance and not being able to add emotion to plain text.

I don't agree that this is a "ridiculous attitude to take because this isn't the outcome wanted by myself or 55 other users" (paraphrasing). The decision to maintain a status quo on UU's community-inclusive tests instead of adopting methods similar to literally every other official tier resulted in skewed results. Problem meet solution. It all begins with a discussion, which is what I want to establish moving forward. "Complaining" publicly is more likely to spark that discussion than doing it in secrecy (or at least in my case, since a noticeable fraction of the UU inner circle tends to not give a shit about what I say).

Like Doubles OU has harder voting reqs than we do due to minimum GXE limits and they literally hand those reqs away.
 
So apparently, arguing that something that's been done in the past but with acceptable results is just wrong after an unexpected outcome is a thing now. First Brexit, then Colombia peace deal, and now Hydreigon. Obviously questioning no games played/GXE limit is completely different from stating that plebiscites aren't democratic, but I still can't help but draw comparisons—maybe because it's really fresh.

I can totally agree with the sentiment behind having a limit, but it's really annoying to have it brought up now because it's obviously due to you disagreeing with a final decision. Like, maybe I am stupid for voting UU (and being stupid might be more of a reason to prevent me from voting than being a bad player, who knows), but at the end of the day it's a matter of opinion. I voted UU for Mence thrice and only got my way at the start of ORAS, and I had to live with it even if I felt it was healthy—again, just an opinion. The same way I disagreed with Brexit and wanted a peace deal, even though I disliked that particular one and criticized Santos for putting on that mise en scène with all the world leaders and the bullet-pen thingy, but accepted the decisions because they were done in the same way as other previous referendums like Chile's or South Africa's—where those outcomes were obviously really welcomed.

The point I'm trying to make is that you can't wait for something to go wrong to claim the method is faulty. A similar thing happened with the Klefki vote (which I thought offered too much support too easily, therefore voting ban) where the supermajority deal was questioned—probably fairly—then instead of when it was first mentioned even though it clearly had a chance to happen sooner or later. Maybe we should've done it after the Tini vote, although I doubt it would've changed the outcome. I do remember a bunch of posts saying it wasn't the problem back then, though, so who knows what would've happened if the retest had been done after Mega Pidgeot got the boot.

If we had infinite time to test stuff and you wanted to retest Hydra as many times as necessary until it's banned, which I doubt will be more than one, I'd be fine with that. I don't think I'd be voting on every test, but since I think persistence is key to success it'd be unfair to oppose it. We don't have that much time, but well, if it's necessary we can do what we did with Chandy and Snow Warning in BW. No big deal there.

I apologize if the real life comments are out of place, I had to get that out of my chest. Like, in my country we had rulers eighty years ago who argued that, since the majority of people didn't know how to read and write, then their votes shouldn't count the same as others and that made electoral fraud almost patriotic. I wouldn't like that thought to justify screwing over the US elections to make sure Drumpf doesn't win, by the same extent, and I really hope the results leave no doubts now that there's so much talk about the possibility of hacking the e-voting machines. It might be a stupid way of thinking, but to me every society has the <Berlusconi/Chávez/whatever you want> it deserves and, in a similar vein, if UU has Hydreigon is because it deserves it.
Peace.
 

Josh

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I would hope that doesn't read like a call-out to either Sam or Hikari, it definitely wasn't intended as one. Considering their IRL schedules, it's fantastic that they still have time to lead UU and I'm grateful for the work they've done and the work they do. Instead, my post is a criticism on how painstakingly easy UU suspect tests are, since you can actually play 829 games and still get voting requirements. I'll admit and apologize that I have a problem with sounding abrasive - I try to word things without trying to come off as uncertain or soft on the issue. It's a consequence of taking a stance and not being able to add emotion to plain text.

I don't agree that this is a "ridiculous attitude to take because this isn't the outcome wanted by myself or 55 other users" (paraphrasing). The decision to maintain a status quo on UU's community-inclusive tests instead of adopting methods similar to literally every other official tier resulted in skewed results. Problem meet solution. It all begins with a discussion, which is what I want to establish moving forward. "Complaining" publicly is more likely to spark that discussion than doing it in secrecy (or at least in my case, since a noticeable fraction of the UU inner circle tends to not give a shit about what I say).

Like Doubles OU has harder voting reqs than we do due to minimum GXE limits and they literally hand those reqs away.
Doubles has a harder limit in terms of restricting gxe but they're still far easier, comparing completely different things accomplishes jack shit. I'd also like to point out uu only requires majority for a ban as opposed to the normal supermajority which means more "noobs" voting stay wouldn't even matter based on other tiers because you didn't reach supermajority regardless.

I might be in the minority but I don't like the idea of a game limit; a coil limit is enough imo. Make it more coil if that's the issue. If some dude is dedicated enough to the tier to play literally hundreds of games to get a say in the vote I say let him, it's dedicated people like that who turn into good players and good community members.

Also FUCK mola
 
It's nearing a close to the generation now, and Hydreigon has been voted not-broken. It's as simple as that. We can hold a suspect for Celebi and that would almsot certainly help balance the tier, but it would be a very disgusting and non-democratic thing to do IMO to retest Hydreigon in the next few weeks before the meta finishes up. Just let it be, the people have voted now, and it's a simple case of "how do we balance the tier best to close up the generation, without going against the result of the suspect test we have just held?"
 
If some dude is dedicated enough to the tier to play literally hundreds of games to get a say in the vote I say let him, it's dedicated people like that who turn into good players and good community members.
Agreed.

Fact is, we all started somewhere. :]

Maybe in the future, we can suspect test Hydreigon again. But for now, it's time to move on. Celebi is the next Pokemon in the tier that needs to be address.

Also, I stand by our leaders Hikari and Sam.

:]
 
Warzoid's post is absolutely excruciating while the tiers on either side of us use battle(thus GXE) caps for reqs to make sure suspects get legitimate results...
 
We can make battle caps or gxe limit later but as of now there is not,the statistics doesn't mean everything.
The aim is to get 2650 coil,not everyone is trying to make the GXE as high as possible.
Clearly there are some players can get 80+GXE(even 85+) are making some test or playing fun team.
 

Hogg

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Let's move on from this discussion, please. I don't see it going anywhere positive.

The results of the suspect test are in. At this point, there is no plan to re-test Hydreigon. Any discussion about adding GXE or game limits to future suspects doesn't really belong here, as it is a question of general tiering policy rather than of this specific meta. In any case, I'll make sure the discussion reaches the proper place, so that it isn't just brushed off.

For the record, while I personally voted ban, many people whose opinion I trust, including folks like UU Open winner King UU, SPL 7 UU players dodmen, Ice Tea and aim, and our tier leader Sam, all voted do not ban. I think it's just straight up false to imply that "very good users" or "elite players" or whatever the hell you want to call it almost all supported banning Hydreigon.
 

Freeroamer

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It's not quite as cut and dry as lower GXE = lesser skill, there are other factors at play. For reference, I qualified with a GXE of ~77, but on the regular ladder have a GXE of ~88, but my w-l rate isn't significantly different due to the fact I did virtually all of my laddering in the first 2 days of the test as I was away for the majority of the test and wanted to vote. It's significantly easier to get a better GXE at the end of the test thanks to the larger proportion of easier games you get thanks to the ladder being more formed with better players at the top end and your newer and less experienced users at the other end. I've asked numerous UU peeps why reqs were so easy for this test(160 voters is a ridiculous number) but the response was "get on with it". idr who I asked but it was one of the forum mods who's response to "I thought suspect tests were so skilled players get to vote on whether a mon is healthy for a tier" was "nah, it's just whoever can get the reqs". I think this is a p poor mentality to have even though the test ended with the result I wanted.
 
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Avant Heim

formerly The Bill Cipher
hydreigon stays,that's good bacause if hydraigon was banned,the meta would be totaly be broken into peaces,bacause hydra is celebi's best offensive check,and with the hydreigon ban,celebi was going to become BROKEN
 

david0895

Mercy Main Btw
hydreigon stays,that's good bacause if hydraigon was banned,the meta would be totaly be broken into peaces,bacause hydra is celebi's best offensive check,and with the hydreigon ban,celebi was going to become BROKEN
So? If Celebi is broken, it will be banned
 
np: ORAS UU Stage 7.3 - See No Evil

Hi. So there hasn't really been any active discussion about UU lately, so I figured I'd fire (hue) up some discussion myself. I wanna talk about Entei for a bit since I think it's an unfair Pokemon worthy of looking into some more.

First of all, Sacred Fire keeps me up at night. Like seriously, this move is ridiculous. Coming off of a handsome attack stat, and more often than not paired with a Choice Band, this move not only nukes, but it also inflicts a hugely crippling status condition 50% of the time. This means a 'counter', like Swampert is considered to be, isn't really. It can come in once and is at the same time forced to function as the SR user, too. Suicune, which is probably the best Entei switch-in in UU that's also widely usable otherwise, is forced to use Rest really quickly if hit by Sacred Fire, but does have Pressure forcing down its PP quicker. Entei is also isn't match-up dependent, despite having seen people claiming it to be (I respectfully wholeheartedly disagree, btw). ExtremeSpeed is a very handy tool vs. offensive builds, while Entei is also deceptively hard to actually outspeed and OHKO at the same time, which gives it more turns to Sacred Fire stuff than one would like it to have.

What do you guys think about Entei? I think it's a suspect test worthy Pokemon and that its counters are actually really pressured by it without even having to use a coverage move to predict them to come in; it just clicks Sacred Fire and it just works. In my opinion counter play is objectively limited and the Pokemon that do switch into Entei commonly would rather not at all, since a burn limits their effectiveness a ton. Am I overreacting a little bit or do some of you feel similarly?
 
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