GSC OU GSC Tiering Proposition - GSC Ubers -> GSC 1U and GSC Classic

[Enigami]

With Ortheore's GSC Ubers tournament, I've been curious about Pokemon Perfect's GSC Tiering. From my current experience with GSC Ubers, I have found it very enjoyable and it even seems to have a decent variety of viable sets and Pokemon.

Nothing appears to be even close to the level of RBY's Mewtwo or ORAS Mega Rayquaza, as even the top Pokemon feels to have decent counterplay to them. While there is centralization around the GSC Ubers, the top 4 (Lugia, Mew, Mewtwo and Snorlax) to me has felt similar to the RBY OU top 4 often demanding 3 out of 4 of them on any given team, with a good number of secondary options for other teammates. This makes me wonder about whether GSC Ubers could be a fully legitimate tier, and no longer GSC's banlist.

On Pokemon Perfect, there has been work towards retesting tiers and tiering based on viability instead of usage, as is being done with RBY and ORAS. Assuming we eventually tackle retesting GSC, I propose GSC Ubers to become PP's GSC 1U over GSC OU. There is precedent for this, as with PP ORAS, Smogon's Ubers (with a small number of bans) became the highest non-ban tier instead of Smogon's OU.

However, as this would likely leave both 1U and 2U completely separate from the current GSC OU, I would propose additionally preserving GSC OU as it currently exists as 'GSC Classic'. Shaking up the GSC OU that players have played for many years to this degree especially when RBY OU is left untouched wouldn't sit well with a lot of people (including myself). While ORAS 1U has more drastically been changed, its accepted due to the common sentiment Smogon's ORAS OU and Ubers tiers are currently problematic.

With this half of the proposal, other than being outside Pokemon Perfect's main GSC tiering and a name change, nothing else would change for the original tier and would very likely remain GSC's primary tier. It could even be given a number/letter name such as 2A(or whatever letter before P) to follow Pokemon Perfect's naming scheme for main tiers as well.

So under my proposal:
GSC 1U - OU: All Pokemon unbanned (old GSC Ubers)
GSC 2A(?) - Classic: Mew, Mewtwo, Lugia, Ho-Oh, and Celebi banned (old GSC OU)
GSC 2P - BL: 2U Banlist
GSC 2U - UU: Pokemon banned from use based on 1U's viability rankings
GSC ...: etc.

While I could be extremely off base with my thoughts, it is something I'd like everyone playing in the GSC Ubers tournament to keep in mind while playing. That said, there are a number of things I'd like to discuss before/if we begin reworking GSC or deciding on where we start with GSC 1U.

Is GSC Ubers a viable tier for 1U? Is it too centralized, or would it be to an acceptable degree such as RBY OU? Would the current GSC OU becoming a 'special' tier akin to Mewbers be fine, or are there concerns with the present GSC OU being separated from Pokemon Perfect's primary #U tiering? Are there issues with 2U being based on GSC Uber's viability rankings instead of GSC OU?

 

[Disaster Area]

2A would work as a name.

I know some GSCers such as Lavos Spawn would be interested in redoing the tiers in some way but they might object to this suggestion. I think you and I are pretty mediocre at best, I don't really feel we have the knowledge to judge if this is okay. Possibly GSC 1U could be just Mewtwo and Lugia bans and keep Mew, Celebi, and Ho-oh. I don't know really.

Jame$ G is probably an expert here and I'm sure we should try and grab any other experienced GSCers we can find to try and refine GSC's tiering.

Will grab Mr.378 to comment too. x_x I suspect that most of the better GSC playerbase won't be totally happy with it but will probably be serious in opening up the possibility to adjust the standard tier.

Also gonna tag Jorgen so that he sees it.

 

[Jame$ G]

Other than renaming Ubers to "1u" and OU to "2a" I don't really understand what's changing here other than making another Uu tier? I can't comment on that as I don't get involved in uu, but the name change with the other 2 is certainly less logical than the originals. I played in an era where Celebi was allowed in OU and personally I believe it's too hard to kill in that tier to be allowed there.

 

[Enigami]

What this would change is whether Ubers would be a full tier as opposed to a ban list, and be the basis for tiering GSC 2U (aka Pokemon Perfect Underused).

As with RBY UU, GSC UU (and below) would most likely end up with a shake up whether Ubers is 1U or not.

GSC 2U under OU = 1U would probably be somewhat similar to BL, while GSC 2U under Ubers = 1U would end up a mixture of OU and BL, with certain top OU Pokemon such as Snorlax very likely to be banned from it due to high viability in the tier above (and the main reason why I suggested having a 2A - Classic tier if Ubers = 1U is used).

--edited for better readability.

 

[Peef Rimgar]

Not a GSCer myself, but I highly recommend going with this. Pokémon Perfect is it's own organization at this point and should probably move away from using Smogon tiering as the default. Even if the decision is the same as the Smogon tiering in the end, it creates the individuality of it further, which we need to avoid confusion.

 

[Disaster Area]

Well. It's not just Smogon that's used this tier and PP's used it for years, and.. well basically anyone who currently plays GSC considers it roughly the main 'OU' ruleset.

We shouldn't change for the sake of being different, but rather for if we feel it'd be an improvement to the tiers in question.

Basically what Enigami is stating boils down to: Old GSC Ubers ---> GSC 1U (effectively, becomes the OU tier), Old GSC OU ---> GSC 2A (basically a rename to keep the tier known and loved to some amoutn in its current form preserved and most likely still played), and it would effectively make the GSC Ubers tier our standard 'OU' tier on here, and would affect how lower tiers are formed (either way there's no tiers below 1U in GSC's current formulation on PP).

 

[Jame$ G]

Yeah I can't really comment on player made tiers, it isn't an entity I adhere to. But as long as we still have what is now OU and ubers as tiers I'm happy

 

[Jame$ G]

But to answer the question I personally would be all down for making ubers the main tier, I love ubers and it would be a new spin on the tier. I'm not sure the rest of the gen 2 fanbase would give it such a positive reception; some people say ubers is "too stally" i'm not sure I agree with that personally, with swords dance Mew, abundance of explosions and S.destructs and insane mixed abilities of the ubers, i'd say they're generally faster matches. The downside will be that it will over centralise the game around the key players because all of sudden the weird obscure stuff that can catch people out in OU simply isn't useable any more. E.G. Nidoking, piloswine, victreebell, charizard etc.

 

[Disaster Area]

you say that but I've come close to losing to parafusion lapras [blizz toxic resttalk with twave support]. And anyway you have Mew, Lugia, Mewtwo, Lax, and Celebi that can all run variety in their sets (ok maybe not celebi so much but eh). I wonder if you banned Lugia and maybe Mewtwo if it would be a balanced metagame with more variety? I don't know GSC too well to say though, maybe someone else can respond?

 

[Ortheore]

Well. It's not just Smogon that's used this tier and PP's used it for years, and.. well basically anyone who currently plays GSC considers it roughly the main 'OU' ruleset.

We shouldn't change for the sake of being different, but rather for if we feel it'd be an improvement to the tiers in question.

These are good points, and something I think is worth keeping in mind.

Personally, I am inclined to keep OU and Ubers as they are. One of the defining features of past gen metas is their universality. Afaik out of the first 4 gens the only difference between different communities is gen 2 (Perish)SleepTrap. I guess Smogon might look at nerfing gen 4 Glisc pass but idk, nothing's happened yet? Point is, these metas are the same regardless of where you play them.

I think having something that everyone recognises is important, and moreso I don't think deviating from an existing universal ruleset is warranted here. With the seasons being geared towards regular competition I think they're naturally oriented towards competing to be the best in a given meta, rather than novelty- for many people visiting this site that's what these tiers would represent (at this time).

Also I question whether you'd be able to cater for one approach without shooting the other approach in the foot. I guess you could try running classic seasons alongside new seasons? Would that be viable?

The most important point is that I think GSC OU is fine the way it is.

That said, it's all up to what people want, and I don't want to be the guy that stands in the way of things on the grounds of "tradition". These are my views, but if ppl disagree with me then that's cool, I'll roll with what everyone else wants.

That said, there's a whole bunch of work I've been meaning to do in relation to gsc, starting with viability rankings for ubers and ou, then going from there, it's just finding time =[

Edit regarding balance: It's funny, I don't feel like anything really dominates gsc ubers (besides boom lol). At the same time, it is an immensely centralised tier with a clear big 4. I don't think any member of the big 4 is irreplaceable, but you're always going to see some of them on any given team. Is this a better situation than GSC OU? I'm not sure. GSC OU you've got Lax, then usually Spikes and an Electric.

As for a possible ban on M2/Lugia/Mew(?) I can't say really, it would be a load of theorymon.

 

[Jame$ G]

Yeah, like I say i'm really not an advocate for inventing tiers and mixing everything up, the rulesets I recognise are those layed out by Gamefreak; Super legendaries are one thing, all other pokes are another. While I appreciate Celebi and Ho-Oh are certainly the weaker pokemon in the super legendary category, that does not mean they belong in OU, it simply means they adopt a less dominant role in the ubers, not less important. Try killing a Celebi with leech seed, recover and heal bell with an OU team, it's nearly impossible, also Ho-Oh with the right moveset can absolutely dominate entire OU teams, a sunnybeam set for example there would be few answers for, couple that with the burns it inflicts, its physical movepool and prowess, it special defense. Everytime someone bans something to try and balance a tier something else pops up in its place as a dominant pokemon, and imo it just upsets the balance more than what you started with. GSC is often criticised for being too stally but that's only because the counter measures the designers put into the game to stop stalling (sleep trap & ohko) are banned. For example I believe the correct approach for regulating ohko is to play the "poke cup" rule set; it would restrict players to using only one ohko pokemon as they'd be forced to put it on their sole lv.55 poke as ohko moves don't hit higher level pokemon in gen2. I believe the net effect of this would be: Electric legendaries and snorlax would be less dominant and annoying stally things like charmbreon, growltank and blissey would be a lot less effective. Idk, just my 2 cents, I think people disrupt the balance unnecessarily, the counters to the things people don't like were put into the game in the first place.

 

[Jame$ G]

And I think I'd agree with Ortheore, nothing's really set to change other than the names here, and realisticly what are we set to gain by doing that? Other than possibly confusing some people.

 

[Jame$ G]

Oh, and I'll give you a little hint about Lapras, Disaster Area; T.tar wrecks it if you play right as it's faster they're unlikely to have a good switch in too if they're using Lapras as their water type.

 

[Enigami]

I do not advocate inventing tiers or mixing things up, nor is that what I propose. I also do not propose altering OU and Ubers. All I have proposed is starting PP GSC 1U without any bans, as it may be balanced enough to qualify as a fully valid tier as opposed to a banlist. The only thing that would be 'invented' and 'mixed up' is tiers below 1U, which will likely happen anyway when reexamining 1U's viability rankings.

Nothing would be invented, unless Lugia and Mewtwo would be banned as Disaster Area suggested. I don't agree with that, as the current 'Big 4' seem to work well being in a tier together. Even in that case, current GSC Ubers would still exist as 1P, and current GSC OU would still exist as 2A. Nothing would happen to those tiers. They would still exist.

I looked into it, and I think GSC Ubers is actually quite healthy as a meta. The number of viable Pokemon in GSC Ubers is limited, but its not nearly as limited as it seems. Using Mr.378's viability rankings (as we currently have none), even incomplete we have:

S Rank - RBY (4): Tauros, Snorlax, Exeggutor, Chansey = GSC (4): Lugia, Mewtwo, Mew, Lugia
A Rank - RBY (4): Zapdos, Starmie, Alakazam, Lapras < GSC (8): Zapdos, Celebi, Ho-oh, Golem, Rhydon, Steelix, Raikou, Tyranitar
B Rank - RBY (5): Golem, Gengar, Jynx, Jolteon, Slowbro = GSC (5): Blissey, Miltank, Gengar, Jolteon, Umbreon
C Rank - RBY (3): Cloyster, Rhydon, Dragonite < GSC (6) (Cloyster, Heracross, Misdreavus, Houndoom, Skarmory, Forretress)

At C Rank or higher, we have RBY: 16 vs GSC: 23. Even if you clip the C-rank (some of them might not actually be C-Rank material), you still end up with RBY: 16 vs GSC: 19. Edit: I can't into counting, that's 17, not 19. RBY has more limited movepools, less moves in general, and centralization around 4 Pokemon like GSC Ubers and it is a perfectly playable tier.

You could argue that as GSC has more Pokemon in total, in each tier more Pokemon should be viable to reflect that. As GSC added 100 Pokemon to the original 151, a roughly 60% increase, that brings the total number of desired viable Pokemon to 26. Even then, it might be fine being lower than that as ORAS OU has 52 Pokemon considered OU when it should be 76, due to having 721 Pokemon (not counting alternate forms and mega evolutions). Even then, 23 is very close to that target (even clipping C-rank still isn't that far off), and there are some Pokemon such as Marowak that could be viable that are currently unranked that could push the number of viable Pokemon higher.

The point about managing multiple tournaments involving GSC is a good one. I figured that its up to the playerbase for GSC and tournament organizers. If old GSC OU is the meta with the most demand, then 'GSC Classic' could be the main tier for GSC tournaments, as to my knowledge there is no rule that 1U's tournaments MUST be favored over more played metas. However, it could be entirely possible that 1U using Ubers ends up being the more demanded meta. Heck, I'm playing it and loving it and I wasn't interested in GSC when I played GSC OU before. If it comes down to manpower concerns for hosting GSC Classic and GSC 1U, others whom may be interested (such as myself) could take on some of those duties and reduce the work load.

Confusion is a valid concern, although it wouldn't take much to explain and would fade with time.

I completely understand the resistance, but I've always felt that "Ubers" is a banlist, containing Pokemon that completely centralize the tier around them (such as RBY Mewtwo and Mew, and everything banned by PP ORAS 1U).

From what I've seen, what I've shown through viability rankings (admittedly incomplete, but its how PP proposes to minimize biased judgements on tiering and everything B rank and up looks good) and team compositions themselves, Ubers does not appear to be an overcentralized tier and should not qualify as a banlist tier. That is the basis for making it 1U, not shaking things up for the sake of 'being different'.

1U should be the highest fair and playable tier, and GSC Ubers looks to me that it qualifies. One possibly fair way to determine this is through viability rankings. If under the standard of tiering the number of Pokemon that would be considered 1U with all Ubers unbanned exceeds an acceptable minimum number, GSC Ubers becomes GSC 1U. If using RBY OU as a basis, then the minimum number would be 15 (note that under Mr.378's current viability rankings, GSC exceeds that already by 4 just with the existing B+ ranks).

@Jame$ G about Lapras: You're talking about a specific counter that isn't exactly guaranteed to be on your team. Tyranitar is not one of the Big 4, and Zapdos, Heal Bellers and/or a Ground-type with Normal/Flying Resist (Steelix/Golem/Rhydon) are more likely candidates for a team. That said, I do doubt Lapras is going to be a big threat to GSC Ubers teams anytime soon.

 

[Disaster Area]

And I think I'd agree with Ortheore, nothing's really set to change other than the names here, and realisticly what are we set to gain by doing that? Other than possibly confusing some people.

the gain could be that our tiering philosophy is more consistent cross-generationally.

Yeah, like I say i'm really not an advocate for inventing tiers and mixing everything up, the rulesets I recognise are those layed out by Gamefreak; Super legendaries are one thing, all other pokes are another. While I appreciate Celebi and Ho-Oh are certainly the weaker pokemon in the super legendary category, that does not mean they belong in OU, it simply means they adopt a less dominant role in the ubers, not less important. Try killing a Celebi with leech seed, recover and heal bell with an OU team, it's nearly impossible, also Ho-Oh with the right moveset can absolutely dominate entire OU teams, a sunnybeam set for example there would be few answers for, couple that with the burns it inflicts, its physical movepool and prowess, it special defense. Everytime someone bans something to try and balance a tier something else pops up in its place as a dominant pokemon, and imo it just upsets the balance more than what you started with. GSC is often criticised for being too stally but that's only because the counter measures the designers put into the game to stop stalling (sleep trap & ohko) are banned. For example I believe the correct approach for regulating ohko is to play the "poke cup" rule set; it would restrict players to using only one ohko pokemon as they'd be forced to put it on their sole lv.55 poke as ohko moves don't hit higher level pokemon in gen2. I believe the net effect of this would be: Electric legendaries and snorlax would be less dominant and annoying stally things like charmbreon, growltank and blissey would be a lot less effective. Idk, just my 2 cents, I think people disrupt the balance unnecessarily, the counters to the things people don't like were put into the game in the first place.

The trouble, admittedly one that's not present in gen 1/2 (but very clear from about gen 4 onwards) ia

Super legendaries are one thing, all other pokes are another.

just plain isn't true. In gen 1/2 it's definitely true, but let me, if I can, cast your eyes upon generation 5, and show you a cover legendary that is, in its generation of introduction, in most ways inferior to a pseudo-legendary introduced in the same generation:
Kyurem

Types: Dragon / Ice
Base Stats: 125 | 130 | 90 | 130 | 90 | 95
Ability: Teravolt

In fact, let's look at a (for the most part) stronger forme that is legal in basically any version of OU in gen 5/6, Kyurem-Black.

Kyurem-Black

Types: Dragon / Ice
Base Stats: 125 | 170 | 100 | 120 | 90 | 95
Ability: Teravolt

And here's the Pokémon which is effectively better than either of them..

Hydregion

Types: Dragon / Dark
Base Stats: 92 | 105 | 90 | 125 | 90 | 98
Ability: Levitate

[In terms of abilities: Teravolt's Description: Abilities that hinder attacks are nullified.; Levitate's Description: This Pokemon is immune to Ground-type moves.]

List of major reasons why Hydregion is generally better than Kyurem-Black and Kyurem.
Hazards: Kyurem and Kyurem-Black lose 25% of their max HP upon switching in to Stealth Rock, Hydregion only 12.5%. Furthermore, Hydregion is immune to Spikes and Toxic Spikes, which affect both Kyurem and Kyurem-Black. In fact, in the current Smogon BW OU Metagame, the Spinners lose often to either the hazard setters or cannot break the Spinblockers (Jellicent can outlast basically any spinner in most situations, no spinner comes close to being able to break the Spinblockers, and furthermore get worn down really quickly). There's also Magic Bounce (Espeon and Xatu) which lets the hazards be bounced back, but they're frail and weak and in short not very effective. This all in all is basically a huge deal, with BW OU known nowadays largely for the huge impact of residual damage [Sand, Spikes, Stealth Rock, etc.]. In spite of those base stats I'd argue that Hydregion's bulk is better when typical hazards are in play.
Movepool: You noticed the gargantuan attack stat on Kyurem-Black? It lacks an usable Ice STAB, making Dragon Claw, Outrage, and Fusion Bolt (i.e. 2 good Dragon STABs and a good physical Electric-type attack) to use off of its STAB. In short, its movepool is really lackluster, letting it make little use of its good stats. Hydregion has all it could want and more, with U-Turn (a Bug-type move that lets the user switch upon use), Fire Blast, Dark Pulse (with STAB! more on that in a moment), Taunt, Superpower (120-BP Physical Fighting-type attack with perfect accuracy) and a myriad of other options, on top of tools that both Pokémon get (such as Roost [basically Recover], Dragon Pulse [reliable Dragon STAB] and Draco Meteor [140 BP Dragon-type attack which lowers the user's SpA by 2 stages afterwards]). The Dark-type STAB and Dark Pulse are very useful, as Ghost/Psychic types are fairly prevalent (such as Reunclius [a very important Pokémon to be able to handle], Alakazam, Gengar, Jelliecnt, Celebi, Starmie, Latias and Latios just from the top of my head) and very good.
Defensive Weaknesses: Kyurem/Kyurem-Black's weaknesses: Dragon / Fighting / Rock / Steel, Hyrdegion's weaknesses: Dragon / Fighting / Ice / Bug.
Going by weakness: Dragon weakness means losing 1v1 versus every faster dragon-type (so Garchomp, Haxorus (not in Hydregion's case), Latias, Latios, Salamence).. dragons are really good in this tier, there is one on nearly every team, and it's pretty much the only type where a monotype-team (i.e. 6 Dragons, called Dragspam) has ever been considered a legitimate (if rare) tactic in OU (often replacing one or two Dragons with a Steel-type such as Magnezone [to remove some Dragon resists], Scizor, Ferrothorn, Skarmory...). Being outsped by other Dragon-types is bad for a Dragon-type in OU, giving Hydregion an advantage here (outspeeding Kyurem-formes and Haxorus).
Fighting weakness: Common priority is Fighting-type, from Breloom and Conkeldurr, whilst Keldeo and Terrakion are incredibly common threats (Keldeo is one of the S-Ranked mons in BW OU by viability) that outspeed and KO either, and lots of other fast Pokemon carry Fighting-type coverage in the form of Focus Blast (Gengar and Alakazam in particular come to mind). Sucks for both tbh but it's not the most difficult typing to switch into.
Rock weakness: In particular Stealth Rocks make this one a gigantic bother. Other than that, it doesn't really do much harm as most matchups, but Stealth Rock weaknessis gigantically debilitating.
Steel weakness: This comes down to weakness to a common priority type, from Scizor and to a lesser extent, Lucario and Metagross in the form of Bullet Punch. It's not that big a deal other than adding another painful matchup or two.
Ice weakness: Mamoswine, and the rare Donphan and Weavile are the only real users of Ice moves outside of kyurem/kyurem-B so it's not a fantastically bad weakness for Hydregion to have (indeed every Dragon other than Kyurem-B in OU suffer from it and Kyurem-B suffers from the Stealth Rock issue...)
Bug weakness: Volcarona and U-turn. U-turn bothers Kyurem-B anyways since it means it's bound to have to switch again and take more hazard damage, Volcarona is a quirky one and is possibly one of the few Pokémon where Kyurem-B has a marginally better matchup I guess.
Anyway overall, especially combining Hydregion's marginally better Speed, Better STAB, better ability to withstand near-omnipresent hazards, etc. Hydregion, a pseudo-legendary, is better generally than a cover legendary (as you dub it, a super legendary) which has the only advantage of a mammoth attack stat but very little use for it.

Or you could consider Phione, which is an event legendary that's even banned from VGC.. but it's garbage even in Smogon's BW NU.. it's even mediocre in Smogon's ORAS PU (it's like 4 or 5 tiers below OU x_x) but it'd be dubbed a super legendary and thus banned from OU (that or allow the horribly broken Manaphy, Shaymin-S, and Darkrai in OU).

------

Point is that the gamefreak-deigned positions of Pokemon is fallible, although admittedly closer to the truth in gen 1/2. I'd just rather not see 'that reason' being used to prevent a change in tiering. There's a lot of other stuff I want to get to in due course but I should be heading off.. should have headed off hours ago.. so I'll write more tomorrow. I just wanted to hammer down the point that what Gamefreak suggested is not what we have to or nessecarily ought to follow. For instance, the main focus of Pokémon competitions as of gen 3 onwards is in a doubles format, and we're focussed on playing singles formats here (though we have no quarrel with doubles, we just very much enjoy singles formats).

 

[Jame$ G]

OK, I apoligise Enigami if that sounded like I was taking a shot at you, that really isn't the case, it was just my personal point of view aimed at this topic and anybody commenting on it as this always gets brought up, I'm really not trying to shoot your ideas down I don't really get involved on the tiering and I'm not really up to speed with all these tier abbreviations, that's why I don't fully understand the movement of renaming it here, I'm not against it.

Honestly I'd love a higher level main tier, probably more than anyone! Going by your definition of the 1U tier I would definitely support that statement.

I had a look at the viability list you put up, I'm guessing this list was formed assuming the gen 2 pokes would all be fighting ubers? I really should get something written up here on it, but assuming that's the case I'd say this list is pretty much on the money. And honestly I've battled Mr.378 several times and those fights were actually a pretty good testiment to how varied the ubers tier can actually be; they're ultra bulky stall vs super aggresive explosion and actually fairly evenly matched and exciting, more so than an average OU match I'd say. But still even with contrasting styles we probably only had 8 different pokemon between the 2 of us, I don't know how that stacks up against OU for you guys but for me there's a little more in OU. (But like I say, ubers have so many viable moves available to them, that isn't a real reflection of the true variation within the fights).

To summarize, honestly I'm with you on this Enigame; The gen2 OU could do with a little refreshment, no ones losing anything and I agree with your principles and I don't think enough people have given gen 2 ubers a chance. I'm interested in what you mean by "not any bans" too?

 

[Jame$ G]

Disaster Area: I hear what you're saying (while I may not understand the generation in you example at all) I've had this debate many times with people, and honestly with Gen 2 I see reasons both sides. I mean I hate Double Team, it annoys the f#ck out of me, I love playing knowing I wont have to face it but if Perish Trap was more common it would be less of a threat. I think a lot of it is that a lot of serious players don't like a game where luck is high odds, while I agree with this, there is a reason these moves were put in the game in the first place; it's to incite an aggressive approach, to move games along and also to give potential newcomers to the gen a chance at beating the top players. Pokemon is inherantly a game of luck and skill, hence it's broad appeal, and I can just see it appealing to a broader audience if it's more accessible to less experienced players of the tier.

 

[Ortheore]

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but my earlier post was made under the assumption that redoing GSC 1U would come at the expense of GSC OU (to some degree).

In terms of the balance and general enjoyability of GSC Ubers, I don't have any complaints at present, and I absolutely loved my matches against The_Joker. However I definitely think more matches need to be played just to make sure we've got a clear idea of the meta since it definitely hasn't been explored properly from my understanding. Aside from that, I've got nothing against this proposition if my assumption is inaccurate.

Anyway, back to my aforementioned assumption. As I see it at this point they would have to be treated equally. We can't compromise GSC OU at all imo, while we'd still want to establish our own tiering system. My concern is less the practicality, more just how we'd go about establishing our new tiers as being valid and legitimate without being seen as diminishing GSC OU. Idk, I'm not sure I'm doing a good job articulating or even pinning down what it is I'm taking issue with, but my main concern runs something along those lines. Other than running two GSC seasons, I'm not sure what would else what be done about this.

Otherwise I'd actually be all for this

 

[Disaster Area]

I'd probably be happy to say that we run 2 seasons in parralel for GSC 1U and GSC 1A [currently GSC OU] which gives them equal reign.

Oh also we should probably discuss whether we should have certain clauses. Whilst Jame$ is fond of not having OHKO clause from what I gather, I don't know if others would be happy to have it removed... but Freeze Clause and Sleep Perish Trap probably could merit discussion about removal. I mean I'm pretty sure well.. let me quote borat here

i'll let you in on a bit of a secret. through gsc history, i was actually the only person against sleep trapping as a whole. to me a jynx running nightmare/ib over psong is every bit as good. getting trap spored by smeargle is every bit as retarded. but that whole bit about it "having been banned in plenty of tournaments" or "vets being split between it and just a sleep perish trap ban" is anecdotal evidence, aka i made it all up. at first it was to see if i could get away with it, this was al the way back in 2006 or 2007 mind you, to see if i could get the metagame to change because it was something I felt was cheap, literally nobody else felt this way. ask vil, floppy, g80, karrot, mr.e, havoc or whoevers left from that era, sleep trap wasn't a thing at all. i'm full of bullshit. but sleep trap had sort of a ring to it when you say it. sleep trap vs sleep perish trap is really just a typo away from each other, and they're both really easy to justify IF we play the history card. the requirements to keeping something the same is much lower than the requirements for change, and that's ok, that's how life is. look at how hard it is to amend the constitution. look at how difficult it is to get faster internet in the us - the initial 768kbps definition for dsl is totally arbitrary, look how retardedly hard it is to change that. basically, it's funny that people use arbitrary to classify the hp legend ban, when there's actually CONCRETE evidence for it having existed, whereas i've shadily gotten away with amending the gsc ruleset for the past 7 years or whatever. when po started, i made the initial set of gsc tiers; i also made the initial ruleset where i casually tried to solidify the clause. it worked. for 5 years i'd been arguing and lying that it had always been a controversial clause. MY ASS. literally only i gave a shit. if we bring up "sleep trap" now, nobody would be like "yeah that's random as fuck", because i basically lied and my guides got popular and people took it as fact. but clearly the idea was good and so people accepted it, and it was a lot easier to argue on equal footing as to why it's justified rather than trying to ratify a sweeping change. if we did a flat comparison between "sleep trap" and "sleep ptrap" now it'd be much closer to a split decision. so now you know. i'm just a cheater. i'm the highest form of cheating. i cheat so hard the rules change around my cheating so that i'm not even cheating.

from: Gen 2 - Someone refresh my memory | Smogon Forums

 

[Enigami]

Jame$ G: Nah, no offense taken. Arguments against this is wanted, and each point raised should be addressed before making such a drastic change as making GSC Ubers the basis for Pokemon Perfect's GSC OU. Honestly though, the biggest worry to me is that we're all playing the tiers wrong and the tier is actually as centralized as assumed. That's why I'm hoping to draw out GSC Uber's players and have them evaluate it whether they pan it or approve it.

"I had a look at the viability list you put up, I'm guessing this list was formed assuming the gen 2 pokes would all be fighting ubers?" To my knowledge, Mr.378's list was based solely on the Pokemons' performance against Uber level teams. From my own experience with using and fighting a number of them, it seems accurate (not too sure about some of C-rank though). There are also a number of untested Pokemon that could be viable. Disaster Area inquired about Marowak and Nidoking before, I thought I heard about someone making use of Quagsire, and I myself am testing Lanturn and Lapras among a few others that may have niches. About "not any bans" I mean Pokemon. Mewtwo, Mew, Lugia, Ho-Oh and Celebi all left unbanned.


Ortheore: "However I definitely think more matches need to be played just to make sure we've got a clear idea of the meta since it definitely hasn't been explored properly from my understanding." That is one of the biggest reasons I brought this up. Between my matches with Disaster Area (both casual and tournament matches), the viability rankings and my own theorymoning, everything seemed to line up with GSC Ubers actually working as a full tier. I'm fully aware though that I'm new to the tier and could be completely wrong with my own assumptions.

I normally wouldn't have suggested a proposal of this magnitude without playing GSC Ubers a lot more and starting my arguments with better ground to stand on, but I wanted to take advantage of the fact we have a tournament going right now and bring discussion about GSC Ubers as a proper tier while there is attention on it and before GSC 1U is set in stone.

GSC OU being uncompromised/undiminished is a major concern to me. The name change is a problem and one I'd rather not have done if it weren't for 1U being the 'OU' tier. My suggested name change to GSC Classic was aiming for a 'good and oldschool' look and sound to it that also when put side by side with GSC 1U would imply that it is still as much of a legitimate tier as it or any other tier. In the future, this precedent could also be used for ADV, DPP and BW (if we get to those) to allow each generation's 1U to be more flexible while preserving their current OUs if desired.

As for tournaments, I see no reason why GSC OU shouldn't continue as is (albeit with a possible name change). I feel if GSC Ubers becomes GSC 1U, GSC 1U should be treated as a brand new tournament series no different than if we just started ADV 1U. One plus though with the two tournament system for GSC players is that there would be more GSC being played in general. Personally, I'm with Disaster Area, I'm all for GSC 1U 'OU' and GSC 2A 'Classic' both having regular tournaments if this proposal ends up approved.

Edit: Wow, I am amazed Borat got away with that. That attitude of messing with the rules for no other reason than the lols should tick me off, but well, I feel its kinda funny that he actually pulled that off. Still, that pretty much makes me want Borat banned from being allowed any position of power over a tier again and hope that no one here would do something like that.