At what point could the OU Metagame said to have failed?

Here is an interesting theoretical topic. Now, as we all know, the OU Metagame is basically an attempt at creating a standard level of play that isn't centralized around a handful of Pokemon. To achieve this goal, Pokemon are often banned to Ubers. The Uber tier is not regulated, and is often called a simple banlist.

However... to see if the OU Metagame was actually significantly less centralized than the Uber tier, I took a look at the usage stats from both tiers to see what they were like. Yep, it appears that OU for now is less centralized -- there are no Pokemon in 30-40% usage range, and not many that are 20%, unlike in Ubers.

But what would happen if we reached a point where the usage stats did become very similar to Ubers? Could we consider the OU Metagame to have failed, and we move to the Uber tier to be the new standard, or would we simply just try to ban more and more things until we reach a smaller concentration of usage percentages?

If the answer is the latter, at what point do we consider an acceptable cut-off for adequate decentralization? If the top 10 Pokemon in OU all had 20% usage rates, would this be considered acceptable, for instance? What about 50%?
 

aVocado

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Pokemon aren't sent to ubers based on how often they're used or how much they're "centralized".. that's exactly what makes Pokemon OU, the fact that they're overused. At some point in this (and even until now) generation and the past, everyone and their mother (and father, and goddamn grandparents) used Scizor in their team. Did that make him uber? not at all. and it will never be.

Same goes to Politoed, Tyranitar, Jirachi, Landorus-T etc.
 
A Pokemon is decided to be Uber if they're so good the game would centralize around them... that's why Garchomp was banned in Gen 4, because people had to end up planning half their teams around them.

If 6 Pokemon had 100% usage rate, you could bet they would be banned to Ubers.
 
I still don't like the idea of "over centralizing" and I'm pretty finicky about banning in general. I'm one of the few who think Exca shouldn't have been banned even though "there was the excadrill metagame". Unlike most, and I respect their view points and opinions too, I happen to think just because something is "so good", that nothing will ever be "too good". In my eyes, that's kind of impossible. There was "excadrill metagame" and "torn-t" metagame but what if both were in the meta at the same time? Then we nearly banned Keldeo, and Genesect was also banned. What if they were all in the same metagame? Wouldn't it be a more varied metagame at that point with all of those strong playstyles in the same arena? Unfortunately Exca never had that sort of competition, but to that, I'd say that although Exca was declared a "quick and easy way to win"[I also wuold contend there are no easy ways to win. All victories are earned no matter what the strategy], using Exca wasn't the only way to win just like using Chomp wasn't the only way to win back in Gen 4. I think the Salamence ban and Garchomp bans, for a period of time, actually made Smogon look pretty bad.

So what that's saying is basically I don't really believe in "over-centralizing", because there are too many ways to win to think something is 'too good', etc. There are just too many ways to win. I know I'm going to be quoted, counter argued, etc and that's fine. Those are just some of my views.

So then what are some other ways "the OU metagame could become a failure"? Has it "failed' before? I'm really not sure. It's probably going to sound irrational to the same people who don't believe in my previous thoughts, but in my eyes, the game of poke'mon would just evolve and take off in a different direction. "Broken" 'mons and strategies would compete against one another instead of having one dominant "broken" mon or strategy. I think the early days of BW1 was a pretty good example of that and I actually liked that metagame. I knnow I'm in the minority when I say these things, but maybe the kind of balance we strive for is kind of artifical, and that instead of eliminating strategies and mons they should just compete against one another.

So my answer: I've always had my bias against banning and have more or less found it unnecessary instead of Genesect -- and also i'm not sure Competitive Poke'mon could actually become a failure as long as it's tiered and organized how it is since it'd likely just change and evolve.
 
Banning more Pokemon would not create a more centralized usage for a tier. It would just make the tier centralize around the Pokemon who are next in usage. Whatever is the most viable way to win is what you are going to see the tier shift toward. There will simply always be Pokemon who have less usage due to the fact there is just a better way to win. If we banned Pokemon like Keldeo or Scizor the other Pokemon in the tier wouldn't stay at the same usage, they would increase. I simply don't think there is a solution to the problem of having over-centralized Pokemon. It is something in the long run I think we just have to try and balance the best we can or deal with it.
 
OU failed when Mence, Blaziken and Excadrill were banned

Why they didn't just ban Speed Boost and Sand Rush is beyond me.
 
OU failed when Mence, Blaziken and Excadrill were banned

Why they didn't just ban Speed Boost and Sand Rush is beyond me.
Mence? That was gen4. Banning speed boost and sand rush would have the same effects as banning blaziken and excadrill on the OU metagame.
 

Electrolyte

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In my opinion, it is a common misconception to assume that excess usage = centralization and later, a ban. This is not directly true.

Rather, usage shows that a Pokemon is powerful, and THAT's what sparks a consideration for ban or a stage for centralization. We don't ban Pokemon because they're used too much; we ban them because they're powerful and affect the meta in negative ways, and those traits are displayed by the warning signs of high usage. But as people have stated before, high usage does not always equal power and centralization, as Scizor is a prime example of something that is used a heckuvalot but really isn't overpowered or centralizing, so to speak.

Also, vice versa. Just because Pokemon are unpopular doesn't mean that they aren't banworthy and will not have any undesirable effects on the OU meta. I mean, we have suspected and almost banned many relatively not overpopular Pokemon, such as Keldeo, who is used in about 10% of teams, and even Volcarona in the beginning of BW1, which is now used in about 10% of teams as well. There are many things that affect usage other than power and centralization, including playability, synergy, and general matchups with the meta. Usage does not directly relate to power, nor vice versa.


But, for the sake of discussion, we should refer to centralization as our measure for power and whether or not something would negatively affect the meta, as opposed to usage, as some people are unfortunately doing. Actually, I wouldn't say we should completely throw away usage stats, but instead, a great way to measure a Pokemon's effect on the meta is to check the usage of other Pokemon that are severely affected by said measured Poke. Powerful and centralizing Pokemon will have a greater effect on the usage of other Pokemon than on the usage of themselves. Genesect was a great example of this (mainly because it was so blatantly broken, but ah, that's my own opinion there.). During Genesect's reign, Heatran was extremely popular, not only because it was the most solid counter to Genesect but also a solid teammate too. Fire-types and Sun in general also experienced more usage, brought into the spotlight because of their ability to check Genesect with their fast Fire attacks. Psychic-types such as Alakazam, Celebi, and Lati@s experienced a drop in usage because they were easily picked off by a Pokemon that was used in more teams than Scizor is today. We know this because in the months after Genesect was banned Psychic-types slowly rose in usage and Sun / Heatran dipped after losing a major 'job'. As you can tell by the usage stats of
other Pokemon, Genesect had a profound impact on the metagame and was very centralizing.

Connecting this back to the OP, I think the OU metagame would be truly 'ruined' if there exists a very stark and noticeable contrast in usage between a select few centralizing Pokemon and basically the rest of the metagame. Unfortunately, the BW2 LC metagame was a very good example of this problem, as it was heavily centralized around Murkrow, Misdreavus, and Mienfoo. (still, LC is terrific and has high hopes for Gen 6, so ofc we didn't give up on it) All three had about 30-40% usage, while the rest of the viable metagame hovered at around 10-20% usage. The problem is more so that the three had so much more usage than the rest of the meta as opposed to the fact that their usage itself was so high. Even if we had a meta where around 20 or so Pokemon were at 30% usage, we wouldn't really have any problems with overcentralization because we have 20 goddamn Pokemon to work with. However, things start to get bad when only a few split from the group and achieve much higher levels of activity, creating a negative stark contrast with the rest of the meta. Something like this would most likely happen when one or a few Pokemon are so absurdly more powerful than the rest of the meta that all other Pokemon are deemed useless and only a select few that are useful in countering or aiding said Pokemon remain viable. (this was basically the problem in LC :/) Thankfully, in OU, we have bans, and the lovely Uber tier to help us out of those kinds of situations.

So, in conclusion, I feel that the OU tier would only ever 'fail' if we had a few Pokemon with drastically higher usage than the rest of the metagame, caused by the fact that they are so powerful that using any other Pokemon would just be a waste. We've never achieved that, thankfully, but we have come close at times (*cough* Genesect *cough*). Thankfully, the relative similarity in power and usefulness amongst the current OU meta means that really the only way to break the OU tier in such a way would be to unleash an Uber God amongst the people, which nobody in their right mind would do.

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Why they didn't just ban Speed Boost and Sand Rush is beyond me.
The reason they didn't ban Speed Boost is because it's not ban-worthy. Ninjask, Combusken, etc. are not broken with Speed Boost.

And I can think of three good reasons why a Speed Boost + Blaziken ban would've been the wrong course to take.
 
If 6 Pokemon had 100% usage rate, you could bet they would be banned to Ubers.
There are quite a few things wrong with this statement, but it is late so I will stick to the only one that is universally incorrect.

Percentages are not additive 40%+40% does not make 80% for example. This is like 5th grade math man.
 
There are quite a few things wrong with this statement, but it is late so I will stick to the only one that is universally incorrect.

Percentages are not additive 40%+40% does not make 80% for example. This is like 5th grade math man.
You can have 100%, and.. you can have 100%.. and.. well, hey, how about.. you get 100% too.
=> So there are 400%'s? SWEET!

I'm sure he as figuratively speaking but.. I smiled. =]
 
There are quite a few things wrong with this statement, but it is late so I will stick to the only one that is universally incorrect.

Percentages are not additive 40%+40% does not make 80% for example. This is like 5th grade math man.
IDK what is going on in this thread about percentages, but you can have something like 40% of the time this happens, and 40% of the time this other thing happens, so there's an 80% chance of one of those two things happening. You are thinking of when something has a chance to happen only if some other thing happens. That being said, you cannot have 6 pokemon at 100% usage at once O.o Edit: This is wrong, as shown by the below posts

I think over centralization is not bad inherently. Usage has no bearing on the brokenness of anything. It is merely a secondhand measure of how easily pokemon fit on a team. This may or may not have anything to do with how broken the said pokemon is.

In my opinion, the metagame can be said to be a failure when it isn't fun anymore. The whole point of playing is to have fun. Unfortunately, 'funness' is rather subjective and unquantifiable. Therefore, the failure of a metagame is individual, and as a whole, the metagame will rarely be a complete failure, in the sense that no one plays it anymore. This will quite likely never happen, even with things such as sand veil Garchomp in gen 4. I daresay this caused a great deal of players to quit, due to the need to heavily invest in checks to Garchomp and the luck based meta. I think that, as a whole, people dislike uncompetitiveness, meaning luck-based. The metagame can, based on that theory, be said to have 'failed' when a luck based system becomes prominent.
 
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IDK what is going on in this thread about percentages, but you can have something like 40% of the time this happens, and 40% of the time this other thing happens, so there's an 80% chance of one of those two things happening. You are thinking of when something has a chance to happen only if some other thing happens. That being said, you cannot have 6 pokemon at 100% usage at once O.o
Let me give you a very simple real life example of why, these are RBY useage stats:

| 1 | Tauros | 79.30926% | 2619 | 70.252% | 2104 | 64.652% |
| 2 | Exeggutor | 70.00055% | 2298 | 61.642% | 2102 | 64.591% |
The first 2 Pokemon add up to over 149% by your logic.

The Pokemon stats are independent, meaning they overlap because they are not dependent on what other Pokemon are chosen for your team. You are correct that dependent percentages add up, this is not the case here.
 
Oh right. Whoops, sorry about that. Although instead of adding up to 100%, it will add up to 600%, as there are 6 pokemon per team (assuming the %s are on what percentage of all teams it was used), so the 40%+40% will be 80% out of 600%. It still is additive.
 
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when did it fail?I think it was when we started to ban things because of weather.Now i cant say for sure if these pokemon would still be broken without weather but i think we started out wrong with some bans.I understand why the Aldaron proposal was accepted they needed something quick but i think it should of been revised more thoroughly

i always found it a problem and ill be honest i dont know much of a way to change it but in a meta where keldeo and the therians exist some pokes should of been retested because it was a new meta game.Would they of worked who knows but it would be fun to test it out

But lets look at the bright side weather is nerfed

i dont think we should ever go down the route of complex bans because wheredo we draw the line

i do think smogon is doing the job to the best of there abilities and they are doing what they feel is right so saying there "ruining the metagame" is wrong but i do think pikachuun was being sarcastic so this isn't a stab at him
 

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Rather, I'd say the metagame would have failed pretty badly when joke teams become more common than serious ones, to the point that it's hard to tell from the usage stats which Pokémon are viable or not. That would imply the majority of the players have stopped caring about the purpose of organized competitive battling, which would indicate a pretty huge failure at some point.

Then again, I guess there would have to be some trigger point first, which I can't identify on a whim. What I'm describing would be the post-apocalypse, but the apocalypse itself is harder to pinpoint.
 
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The entire metagame failed when it became obvious everyone ran the same 15-20 pokemon in all the tiers completely ignoring the rest as well as having a single move basically force you to use both it and the counter to it as well as hurting the use of basically an entire 1-2 types and then not doing anything about it. When you see at least 2 of scizor, T-tar, lucario, etc every 2-3 battles then the metagame failed.
 
The entire metagame failed when it became obvious everyone ran the same 15-20 pokemon in all the tiers completely ignoring the rest as well as having a single move basically force you to use both it and the counter to it as well as hurting the use of basically an entire 1-2 types and then not doing anything about it. When you see at least 2 of scizor, T-tar, lucario, etc every 2-3 battles then the metagame failed.
I completely concur with this. Things getting obscenely ubiquitous to the point where 80% or more of all teams run them possibly in addition to a dedicated slot to counter them... there's a problem.
 
What's ironic about that statement is that BW OU had more variety in it than the OU metagames of all previous generations. RBY OU had 16 OU Pokemon, GSC had 24, RSE had 27, DPP had 48, and BW had 50. I'm not sure where this "15-20" number is coming from when besides the 50 Pokemon common enough to be considered "Overused," there are many such as Amoonguss, Sableye, Chansey, Cresselia, Tornadus, Victini, Abomasnow, Ditto, Slowbro, etc. that had viable niches and were used once it a while in order to abuse those niches. You'd also be surprised at just how little centralization you actually see in regards to individual Pokemon when compared to metagames of the past. The top Pokemon in OU right now, Scizor, is sitting at about 22% usage. At the end of DPP, OU's top threats had even more usage. According to this Smog article, written a few months after DPP had ended, the top 5 Pokemon in OU beat what usage Scizor gets now. According to last month's usage stats for Pokemon Showdown!'s DPP OU ladder, we see the same thing: the top 5 each get over 22% usage.

There were a few obvious problems with the OU metagame, but "you only see the same small handful of Pokemon over and over" is honestly just a talking point used by critics of Smogon that isn't really grounded in reality. If you really want a metagame where you see the same stuff over and over, try RBY OU where the same 5 or 6 Pokemon are found on half of all teams, or GSC where nearly every serious team runs a Snorlax.
 
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