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

They should not be.

Non-HP-Legends make the metagame just stallier and the ban is just silly anyways because there is no reason to ban it in the first place aside from balancing. And if we actually did try to balance via moveset bans then the electrics should be one of the least worries because Lax is still a bigger threat even with hp-legends allowed.

Not to mention that i think that even with HP-Legends allowed both Zapdos and Raikou are ridiculously overratedand easy to abuse with the right teams. Running Lax + a ground usually suffices to check Electrics and there are alot of options to play around them.
All in all HP-electrics are not even close to broken.
 

Ortheore

Emeritus
2 1 3 3 3 1 2 2
Ignored. Higher ups decided that pandering to players of the most dead OU metagame of Pokemon was better than following the stated tiering philosophy that all Pokemon start out 1U (RBY excepted due to Mewtwo and Mew already being very thoroughly explored to be quickban worthy) and ignored whatever the original setup was. Same thing happened to ADV, and looks like it'll happen to DPP and BW too. Seems hypocritical to me that the only generation that actually followed the philosophy was Disaster Area's personal project ORAS 1U (which carried on to SM 1U), but whatever. Not my site, not my rules.

I want to get to GSC lower tiers anyway, and trying to argue against the old guard is like arguing with statues.
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I really want to see this proposal brought to fruition, it's just there's no point if nobody plays. Calling the GSC playerbase "dead" isn't quite accurate since there's still plenty of good players involved. Fwiw I intend to keep this proposal alive as long as I'm around, because I agree that it's the way things ought to be done, it's just that egregiously pushing for such an idea likely to piss a lot of people off, regardless of what is done to accomodate the old meta.

So I guess the question becomes what would it take for me to seriously start pushing for it? The playerbase needs to be of a size and quality that we could pull such a thing off. The previous GSC season is a notable example- we had a lot of signups, but we were down to 12 players in the end. Furthermore a lot of people I think view PP as a place for tours rather than a community in its own right. That's to be expected, given that that's most of what we do, but there's more to us than that. Ultimately I think it's this divide that drives a lot of what goes on here as we try and tread the line.

Having said that, maybe opening a gsc ubers tour a couple weeks into the season would be fun

As for ADV/HGSS if I were to play devil's advocate, it's that these tiers are very highly regarded in their own right, so in sort of makes sense that they be given a pass in rather than scrapping them and going through a ton of testing to reach a product that may not even have ended up better. BW is a whole other matter though, since it seems every other player has a different gripe with BW2 OU, so I personally think we ought to start from ubers as the aforementioned reason isn't valid. But that's not my decision.
 
They should not be.

Non-HP-Legends make the metagame just stallier and the ban is just silly anyways because there is no reason to ban it in the first place aside from balancing. And if we actually did try to balance via moveset bans then the electrics should be one of the least worries because Lax is still a bigger threat even with hp-legends allowed.

Not to mention that i think that even with HP-Legends allowed both Zapdos and Raikou are ridiculously overratedand easy to abuse with the right teams. Running Lax + a ground usually suffices to check Electrics and there are alot of options to play around them.
All in all HP-electrics are not even close to broken.
I know it isn't broken but having them around nerfs ground types while buffing zapdos and raikou when they were already good. I would ban lax in a heart beat. We all know he is too good and we have all known that for over a decade. He should of been banned a long time ago.
 
Roostur HP legends is a complex ban, and we don't use those here except in very unusual circumstances. It's a very, very slippery slope.

Lax ban is generally seen as a poor solution to GSC OU because Raikou in a Laxless meta is about as bad as Lax in OU. Hence this thread, in which alternatives are discussed.
Raikou in a laxless meta is about as bad as lax in ou? That's the first time I've ever heard anyone say that. What? You're going to have to explain that one to me. He might be better. A lot of pokemon might be better. But as bad as lax?
 
I'd also like an explanation on Raikou in Laxless OU being at Snorlax OP level.

If I remember correctly, Lax has no full counter, while Raikou is completely shut down by just about any other Electric (besides Lanturn/Zapdos of course), Blissey, and varying Grounds/Grasses depending on which HP it runs. If the Shiny restriction is ever used, that'd mean Crunch-neutral Grasses, Steelix and Nidos (also Gligar and Dragonair) would be guaranteed to wall Raikou since it'd be stuck with HP Grass for HP coverage.

Add the fact it can't boost its main attack (without Growthpass) and doesn't normally run Curse like Lax and become nigh unkillable like Lax, and I struggle to see how Raikou would ever be on Lax's level even with Lax gone.
 
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Electrics, Blissey and to some extent Meganium only neutralise Raikou - they can't actually defeat it. That's the same category as Growlers and phazers for Lax. The rest are all set-dependent, which means you have to bring two, like with Lax in OU.

Raikou also has Roar, which Snorlax doesn't. With Spikes down, Raikou can beat literally all its counters except Gligar with Roar on the switch.
 
What counters are you using for belly drum lax? Bd lax can kill any of its "counters". Whereas raikou will never kill blissey. He has to switch out or just roar. If he roars in steelix, or marowak, or something that can hit it hard, he has to switch out. It is a lot easier to make raikou switch. And if we banned lax and it turned out raikou WAS too powerful, it would only be because of hidden power and we could ban hp zapdos and hp raikou and the meta would then be fine and balanced. It use to be banned and with good reason. But even if raikou is a lot better with lax gone, there is no way he is going to be better than or as good as lax. Lax is just a totally different beast.
 
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Right, that sort of makes sense. Though the strength of Raikou in a Laxless meta shouldn't be used as a reason against a ban on Lax. That would just mean Raikou would be ban worthy itself, and Lax is just a case of 'broken checking broken'.

Edit: also Roostur stop asking for a HP ban. That's a nasty undesirable complex ban that would have ramifications across all metas since it'd open the door to other complex bans like the infamous 'speed boost Blaziken' complex ban some people want. Theoretically, the Shiny restriction method I've talked about would probably work better since it accomplishes pretty much the same thing you want, nerfing a Pokemon by reducing their HP coverage (while incidentally making them less bulky , slower and have weaker special attacks) and having no effect outside GSC since only GSC has those quirks with shinies.
 
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Right, that sort of makes sense. Though the strength of Raikou in a Laxless meta shouldn't be used as a reason against a ban on Lax. That would just mean Raikou would be ban worthy itself, and Lax is just a case of 'broken checking broken'.
Well if you ban hidden power raikou then grounds get to switch in for free basically and make him switch out. So he wouldn't be broken if you just ban hidden power. Hidden power would be the only thing that makes him broken because hidden power plus roar can destroy his ground counters.
 
Right, that sort of makes sense. Though the strength of Raikou in a Laxless meta shouldn't be used as a reason against a ban on Lax. That would just mean Raikou would be ban worthy itself, and Lax is just a case of 'broken checking broken'.

Edit: also Roostur stop asking for a HP ban. That's a nasty undesirable complex ban that would have ramifications across all metas since it'd open the door to other complex bans like the infamous 'speed boost Blaziken' complex ban some people want. Theoretically, the Shiny restriction method I've talked about would probably work better since it accomplishes pretty much the same thing you want, nerfing a Pokemon by reducing their HP coverage (while incidentally making them less bulky , slower and have weaker special attacks) and having no effect outside GSC since only GSC has those quirks with shinies.
okay just saw your edit. That's fine. I can understand and respect a principle like that even if it does get in the way of balancing the meta. So in that case I agree with you. If raikou became too powerful then we would just consider banning raikou,
 
Right, that sort of makes sense. Though the strength of Raikou in a Laxless meta shouldn't be used as a reason against a ban on Lax. That would just mean Raikou would be ban worthy itself, and Lax is just a case of 'broken checking broken'.
Well, the point of bans is to generate tiers that work. You have to have at least some light at the end of the tunnel, and the question is whether a better 1U can be found via taking GSC OU and banning a small-enough number of things from it that it isn't contained or almost contained within the 2U of Ubers as 1U.
 
I retract my statement about banning lax. My position on it has evolved in the last few months. I wanted to ban lax to add more variety to the game, and banning him would, but I've realized that this shouldn't be the incentive when it comes to banning. It is true that out of the 6 pokemon slots on a team the only one that can't be replaced by something different and just as good is Lax's slot. There is no poke who can replace him. He is the optimal pokemon in that slot always and no one can dispute that, but I've come to the conclusion that we should respect the original game as much as we can. Being a ban/rule minimalist is the most rational position to hold. To want to change game freak's game, a game that many people grew up loving and some might even be discovering this year and falling in love with, is extremely arrogant. Unless we are complaining about something in the game that stops the game from being an actual competitive game, something like sleep trapping that is completely luck based and would degrade the game to nothing but luck, then it doesn't warrant a ban. Isa's post about banning Chansey in rby made me want to write this. There is no good reason, outside of personal preference about how you would like to see the metagame changed, to ban Chansey. There is nothing wrong with the RBY metagame, the most old experienced metagame. Forget that though. Disregard all the technical in game reasons why you should/shouldn't ban Chansey. Pokemon means a lot to some people. It brings joy to a lot of people's lives and it is how some people get through tough times. When you fuck with their favorite game you're fucking with them. So if you want to change something in a game that means a lot to them you better have a really damn good reason why you want it changed. That is why I now hold the principle that if it isn't destroying the competitive side of the game and degrading the game to literally just luck (sleep trapping) then it shouldn't be banned. I don't care if we all end up playing the same teams and the game becomes less varied. It is not our place to impose our personal preferences on the game. Holding this principle is easy and keeps people from making dumb changes in the future. That's all I wanted to say. I'm done now,
 
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




from: Gen 2 - Someone refresh my memory | Smogon Forums
You know what is really ironic about that quote? I've been thinking about it and I would love to undo sleep trap perish song ban. There are actually more counter plays to it than the confuse ray, mean look, p song trick thanks to sleep clause and sleep talk. It actually wouldn't be that broken and obviously wasn't that broken seeing as borat admits no one else thought so, and james g (a player who played with it before it was banned) actually wants it back, yet I know if I fought for it to be unbanned I'd probably be wasting my breath. Lol. Ain't that some shit? No one thinks it is broken, borat lies, now everyone (people who have no experience playing with it) will act like it is just common knowledge that it is broken and wouldn't even consider unbanning it, and the one player who actually does have experience with it (james g) wants it unbanned as well. Gotta give Borat his credit. That is some legendary con artistry.
 
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