Yes yes, feed my reaction score with hahas and wows or something, whatever.
If we do 10 slots, then the extra slots would either go to SS NU/Bo3 NU (whichever isn't in), GSC NU, and/or RBY NU. I personally have been a bit wary about including RBY NU in this iteration of the tournament due to the lack of tiering changes since NUSD, but its worth bringing up as a possibility.
Ayo?
I strongly believe that RBY NU is a fine candidate for the tournament and, by extension, I would love to see GSC NU put in as well.
I think RBY NU has had a bit of an unfair rap since NUSD - I'd chalk this up to culture shock - and much of the people who actually play the tier regularly see it as fine. It recently had its
first official quantified viability rankings published, signifying that the metagame has now stablised. The tier is not "broken" and has boundless potential for optimisation, as was stated when people first criticised it during NUSD by notable community members like (posts hereto)
spies,
phoopes,
Ika (see general thoughts), and so on. Serpi and Enigami have also been ok with the tier who are, again, great players, the best of the bunch actually. You could go for an ad hominem and say "well they win so of course they don't want change", but this just isn't how our community works, nor is it a fair accusation to make. The people who actually play the tier saying it's fine is nothing more than a sign that the metagame is progressing
well. The recent Spotlight Tour had
32 participants, compared to
the Venusaur-included NU before, which had 24, despite some people praising that old metagame as the second coming of christ. Participation is
increasing over time. NUSD had 29 sign-ups for RBY, which is about average for this tournament's old gens from what I can tell, but still less than what the spotlight tour from 2 months ago had. If RBY NU is failing and needs fixing, why are sign-ups remaining consistent? This is purely empirical evidence, but I can state from me being "the RBY girl" that the reception from NUSD in the community, while we were initially receptive, has been something we're quite disheartened about, because we realised that it was just...wrong, as phoopes outlines. In fact, the high-level playerbase has increased with Mikon, juoean, and more entering the fray and succeeding. This tier is beloved and progressing, and I can see tiering action eventually being taken if only to verify community opinion.
So given this, my conclusion is the tier does not need "fixing", and the "work that needs to be done" is either significantly less than people state, or nonexistent. I do agree that Charizard is very powerful -
I wrote the book on it - but there are numerous counterarguments against it, such as its lack of defensive utility, occasional reliance on setup to sweep in a very fast tier, and being OHKOed by paralysis; Tauros is balanced similarly in OU without the need for setup and
has niche (read: extremely, like, wow, never actually do it) defensive utility, for scale. Sleep exists yet few games see themselves actually being won as a direct result of it; this is typical for RBY games. Fire Spin continues to drop in usage too, christ, I could rant forever about how these "broken" elements are far more complex than they seem. RBY is a
punishing generation if you play poorly, and NU is just another spice. It was simply not being played optimally yet. The players who defended NU seem to be correct, but that can always change, and that requires tournament play!
I loved playing in NUSD and, frankly, the games I had with Serpi were some of the best I have played in my life. You can see my reactions on my YouTube channel
here and
here, they were fucking amazing and I loved every second of it. I played at my best, and while I lost, I did not feel sour about it at all. You'll also see that every single turn was
good, like, wow. I believe the level of play here is indisputable: this tier is competitive and can very much be spectator-friendly. I believe that RBY NU's diversity was demonstrated quite well and it's only been improving as time goes on, with the discovery of niche Pokemon like Primeape, Sandslash, and more. The top-tiers are also seeing more sets tried out, which is normally a sign the metagame is getting to that zen state too. NUSD was the second major team tournament for RBY NU and it's still in its infancy.
There haven't been any suspect tests in RBY NU yet, but that's not a bad thing:
Multiple people in this thread have said that they don't want RBY NU in due to "a lack of tiering changes since NUSD," or saying that "the tier needs a lot of work done atm," or saying that the tier could be included if it was "fixed." My response is this, however: does a tier really need to have "action" for it to be considered legitimate? And does RBY NU really need to be fixed? Everyone would agree that RBY OU is a legitimate tier and it hasn't seen any tiering action since Mewtwo and Mew were banned like 20+ years ago lol, there hasn't been anything to "fix" since then (except for the Counter-desync clause vote). The point I'm trying to make is that just because there hasn't been any suspect tests yet does not mean the tier needs to be "fixed." What's great about RBY Lower Tiers is that, as mentioned before, we have Councils. If the Council thinks that something needs to be done with the tier in order to fix something broken or uncompetitive, they'll do it. They have not reached this conclusion as of yet, so nothing has been done. I'll give you this: if you don't like RBY NU, that's fine. Maybe it's not your cup of tea. But the NU Council and the broader RBY Community haven't deemed anything broken or uncompetitive enough to suspect yet, and it's not going to happen just to get the tier into NUPL. There have been theorized suspect tests for this or that, but they have been kind of few and far between.
I want to add to this by saying
RBYers don't kneejerk ban things; we like to do it after multiple tournaments and a VR phase has concluded, and now would be a great time to see how it's actually changed. Players have gotten better, discoveries have been made, and this tournament would be an excellent time to put it all to the test. Culturally, we are used to playing around powerful Pokemon, and we enjoy seeing and using them; this comes from our OU roots. Notice how we have had very few suspect tests up until UU began being optimised: we work extremely hard to ensure that when we do something, we do it right. Has that always worked? No, I believe the UU Dragonite Suspect Test was a failure, and that's because we had quite literally never done this before. Do I believe it's the right approach? Yes, it's still by the book. If trying to do things scientifically to make the best metagame possible means getting shot down, that's fine. As with any rational group of tiering policy lovers, we care about our players first and foremost: we want something great that actually sees play.
The player pool doesn't get "watered down by adding RBY and GSC:"
I know this is a concern for some people with adding more slots to a tournament, but realistically I don't think you need to worry about that with GSC/RBY inclusion in this tour. For better or for worse, GSC and RBY are still more of their own communities than being connected to NU as a whole. This kind of seclusion means there's not a lot of player overlap (again, for better or for worse). But what this does mean is that you're not adding lesser players into a pool, you're adding more top players, just of different generations. So even though the tour would be going up to 10 slots with GSC/RBY inclusion you're not going to get a decrease in the quality of games. Also maybe it's because I'm not a tours player by trade but I really don't get the argument of "we can't have two 10-slot tours!" Because to me... who really cares? The format of the tours are already different enough with one being Snake Draft and the other being Auction so I don't really see the point of making one 8 slots while the other has 10. If it means all gens get to be included in both tours, by all means make them both 10 slots.
I also want to add to this in that the RBY NU playerbase is very stacked. As phoopes points out later in the post, you have top-level players here who have over a 70% win rate - literal apex predators - and the games between them are extremely competitive. I think saying it waters down the player pool does a bit of a disservice to those players: RBY requires a very unique skill-set, something you can't replicate in generations past GSC. There is a significant emphasis on play-lines and probability management rather than textbook teambuilding; this is why you rarely see RBYers play anything other than RBY, as they simply prefer this generation as it caters to them better than anything else. This does not make the game less skillful, it just makes it different, and that's ok. I think that's a benefit, if anything! You get a different take on the game that you can't get anywhere else.
What we have here is a devoted, high-level playerbase for a perfectly good tier that unfortunately did not have the best of first impressions. Nothing more, nothing less. Notice how the Smogon RBY Discord is the largest of the old gen ones despite
literally being reset, and it's actually outpacing the old one that's being held by an unscrupulous, permabanned user.
Here's the new one...
And here's the old one.
THAT is how dedicated we are. We fought through our server being fucking reset after one of the biggest tragedies this community has ever faced, one that made me step down. We fucking care about this generation, we love it, we want to see RBY NU succeed. Numerous amazing players are in this new one, it's extremely active with SPL-level competitors regularly conversing, and we sometimes see big promotions. Isn't that amazing? It's surpassing its old numbers, the playerbase is growing and improving, this generation just keeps on winning in the face of the unfair stereotypes that keep getting forced upon it. We don't care if a tier is imperfect, we will polish it until it gleams.
RBY is a difficult generation to grasp, I get it. I also know all the regular groans - sleep, speed-based crits, freeze, el wrappo del dragón - I've heard them a million times. But notice how the players who win are the ones who have played the game for years. They have seen, heard, and most of all, actually experienced these critiques as much as I have and see past them. If you "just don't like RBY", that's fine! I get it, it's the Marmite generation. But if you do, just say it. We'll understand and give you a hug, just as we have with many a critic.
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Anyway...I have given the suggestion, let's come up with a solution. From what I know, many CG players dislike BO3, but I may be wrong in respect to the general NU community. It's just a common opinion I've heard and, as such, I'm making this a part of my pitch. If I'm right but you want a BO3 format anyway, why not go with RBY, eh? Eh? How's that sound?
nudge nudge
10 slots, 3 SWSH / 1 of each old gen. That's the SPL format right there!
RBYers adore BO3 and we have a tradition of always playing it that way. Since its introduction, it has greatly improved the generation's competitiveness and become a massive cornerstone of the community's tournament culture. I'd wager that we're a perfect fit for your tournament! Everyone wins, right? You even get all-gen inclusion prior to Gen 9!