Two can play! "Part of me dies each time someone complains, essentially asking for us to quickban 3+ Pokemon within 4-5 days of a monumental release. Delete these posters plz." Why? Sure, let's explain why!
Any individual Pokemon getting banned has a substantial impact on the rest of the metagame. The Pokemon used changes, the way those Pokemon are used changes, and on a larger scale playstyles/trends also change. Quickbans are only applied to absolutely drastic cases earlier in tiers or with a clear notice of future action (i.e: Melmetal and Cinderace in pre-DLC2 SS OU) to begin with; expecting quickbans of 4, 5, 6, etc. Pokemon is, to put it bluntly, absolutely ridiculous. The fact that we banned two and are not handling this one at a time is arguably risky enough and more risky than anything else in modern OU tiering history*. Let's examine all of the modern OU quickbans:
Generation 8
- Genesect and Naganadel: October 28, 2020
- Cinderace: August 5, 2020
- Kyurem-Black and Melmetal: February 14, 2020*
- Darmanitan-Galar: December 29, 2019
- Moody: December 10, 2019
- Shadow Tag: November 18, 2019
Generation 7
- Baton Pass: May 27, 2017
- Landorus-I: December 10, 2016
- Aegislash: November 29, 2016
- Power Construct: November 22, 2016
Generation 6
- Salamencite: November 28, 2014
- Kangaskhanite: December 18, 2013
- Gengarite: December 2, 2013
- Blaziken and Deoxys-N: November 12, 2013
*Was done under the condition that Melmetal would be retested. Kyurem-Black was also eventually brought down to OU after DLC2.
We have only had three* quickbans of more than one Pokemon over the last 8 years, with one being under circumstances that obviously make it less noteworthy than the other two. Over this span and going as far back as I can possibly tell, we have never banned more than two Pokemon with the same quickban at the same time.
Ok, but why is the system like this and why not change it? Because every ban has such a drastic impact, that we cannot accurately say what the next trends will be. Multiple things could be broken in one metagame state, but if one of them is banned, all of a sudden the other could potentially not be broken. You couple this with the fact that almost all quickbans happen very early into metagames -- i.e: rn we are less than a week into the metagame. Forming valid opinions on potential suspects and bans usually take weeks, so it would have to be blatantly broken to get quickbanned to begin with. If ALL of this is not enough, you also get the fact that these new metagames shift at a super rapid pace. We have seen so many different trends pop-up and then fade away in the last week alone, making it near impossible to have a consistent opinion formed on non-obvious cases.
At this point, it should be obvious why quickbans need to be handled carefully. If you still don't agree, that's fine, but I disagree profusely and this is not changing. One thing that I would like to see changed for a more aggressive approach? Public suspects should be handled more aggressively in the future in order to give the community the ideal time and setting to determine what should happen with the metagame. Still though...council quickbans are and always will be handled with caution. We banned two Pokemon because they were two absolute extremes. Naganadel was very clearly broken.
Now as for why these two Pokemon: it is much more valid to disagree with the Pokemon that ended up banned, especially when compared to the quantity of Pokemon banned. However, I personally shared my thoughts on each Pokemon multiple times, including most recently
here. Genesect and Naganadel are far-and-away the most restrictive in my eyes. I do believe that Lando-I, Kyurem-B, and Zygarde will be short lived in the metagame, but they were not on par with these two and their roles in the tier are still constantly evolving.
We had this issue before and honestly I hate that we are having again. I do not know what switch flicked in people's minds that made them decide they were allowed to openly complain about things that already happened in a thread clearly intended for current metagame discussion, but obviously it is not. I find it annoying that my transparency is used as an open door to complain and tear down well-thought out decisions just because of personal disagreements. This is not and will never be the place for you guys to just bash tiering decisions with low-effort rants. That ruins the thread for everyone trying to discuss the metagame in a genuine fashion, such as the poster directly above me! If you have grievances, PM the council anytime and we will respond.