Resource RBY Forum Information, Rules, and Council / Tiering Information

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RBY Forum Information, Rules, and Council / Tiering Information
:tauros:RBY Forum Rules
  • All threads should be approved by a RBY Forum Moderator (emma, Enigami, FriendOfMrGolem120, Serpi). Feel free to message any of them via Discord or Smogon if you would like to make a new thread and note which moderator approved the thread at the top of your post. Unapproved threads are likely to be locked.
  • Be nice to each other. You can disagree with another user while still being respectful. Don't engage in flame wars. If you see something, say something. Please contact a RBY Forum Moderator with any concerns regarding harassment, bullying, or any other unacceptable behavior.​
  • Ensure your posts are grammatically coherent, contribute to the discussion at hand, and aren't simple one-liners. Don't double post unless there's a significant amount of time inbetween.​
:snorlax: RBY Forum Guide
:chansey: RBY Moderators
These users are responsible for the RBY forum and will enforce the rules at their discretion. If you have any questions, ask them anything!
  • emma - June 2021 - March 2022; June 2022 - December 2022; January 2024 - Present
  • Enigami - January 2023 - Present
  • FriendOfMrGolem120 - June 2021 - Present
  • Serpi - August 2022 - Present

:starmie: RBY Council
Smogon's official RBY Tiering is governed by a small council. Their responsibility is to ensure the RBY metagame remains stable, and they may engage in suspect tests and the like to this end. If you have any questions about tiering, they're the people you call up!

:exeggutor: RBY Discord
Smogon has an official RBY Community Discord Server! Join for discussion about all things RBY -- including OU and lower tiers, tournaments, analyses, and more!

Our staff in the RBY Discord are as follows;
 

Sabelette

from the river to the sea
is a Site Content Manageris a Community Contributoris a Top Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Hi there! This post will contain some information on tiering in RBY. Thanks to May for help with a lot of this.

Introduction
Because RBY OU was first formed prior to ADV, usage-based tiering was not produced yet, and thus tiering is done on viability standards. Thus, RBY tiering is still actively engaged in and not frozen, given prestige by the original RBY UU's BL list being abolished by Hipmonlee in 2011. This allowed tiering to continue and not be subjected to Oglemi's tier lock prior to its abolishment.

Viability Rankings
Every year, our core tiers - RBY OU, RBY Ubers, RBY UU, and RBY NU, as well as Stadium OU and Tradebacks OU - are given new Viability Rankings, which defines how our tiering is conducted. These Viability Rankings are voted on by qualified individuals, which can be achieved through placing highly in on-site tournaments. Rankings are calculated using vapicuno's Quantiative Tiering Method.

Council Information
In order to qualify for Viability Rankings voting, objective requirements will be set forth by a council for each tier. These requirements will consist of high placements in tours relevant to the tier, as determined by the council. Members of the council will auto-qualify, and may also make case-by-case determinations on additional voters if needed. For example, a player that did not participate in tours/had low placings but still shows sufficient knowledge of and dedication to the metagame may be included by the council at their discretion. However, the council will not reject anyone that meet the requirements set forward. Should there be an issues or complaints with the council and/or the council's requirements, the situation will be taken up by the lower tier leader. Leadership is as follows:

Head RBY Council: FriendOfMrGolem120, Nails, Serpi

Lower Tiers Leader: Sabelette

Ubers Council: Ctown6, Enigami, Oiseau Bleu, Sabelette

UU Council: Shellnuts, Torchic, Unowndragon, Volk

NU Council: MrSoup, nicole7735, Sabelette, Serpi

PU Council: Gangsta Spongebob, Gastlies, Sabelette, Teh, Wanted in 49 States

ZU Council: Sabelette, gastlies, Gangsta Spongebob, BeatsBlack, Medeia, torkonpeter, NotVeryCake

Tier Shifts
Because RBY is not frozen, tier shifts can occur between OU, UU, NU, PU, and ZU; this occurs if a Pokemon drops below or rises above the designated cutoff point of a tier. For example, if an OU Pokemon were to drop to C+ rank in an OU Viability Rankings update, that Pokemon would then drop to UU status immediately. Conversely, if a UU Pokemon were to rise to B- rank in an OU Viability Rankings update, that Pokemon would then rise to OU status immediately. This replaces the old policy effective immediately.

If a Pokemon drops to a lower tier and is deemed to be immediately broken/uncompetitive in the lower tier, that said tier's council my vote to quickban the Pokemon by a simple majority. It is also up to a tier's council to conduct appropriate suspect tests as needed, as well as determine which users are eligible to participate in suspect tests. This will be determined by either high placement in previous tours in the tier, or through live tours in order to earn qualifications.

Tiering for OU is done yearly, while all other tiers do a viability rankings update every 2 years.

---

Finally, when it comes to tiering, the following assumptions are being made:
Tiering Assumptions
In regards to tiering and simulating RBY, since the game is complicated, in addition to Smogon's Tiering Policy, the following assumptions are made for the generation;
  • The standard simulated game of choice is the English release of Pokemon Yellow on a standard Game Boy.
    • Stadium OU is played on the English NTSC release of Pokemon Stadium.
    • Thus, Japanese Event moves (Dragon Rage Magikarp, Pay Day Rapidash, Pay Day Fearow, Fly Pikachu, and Fly Raichu) are banned.
  • Universal Clauses: Sleep Clause Mod, Freeze Clause Mod, Desync Clause Mod, Invulnerability Clause, Tradeback Clause, Species Clause, Evasion Clause, OHKO Clause, Cleric Clause, Endless Battle Clause
    • Sleep and Freeze Clause Mod are accepted, being imported from Stadium in the early days of the generation and tinkered with from then-on.
    • Cleric Clause soft-bans pre-status, non-max HP, and non-full PP.
      • To combat Wrap strategies, Pokemon are generally expected to have Max PP on all moves.
    • Tradebacks are defined as "content obtained from GSC through the Time Capsule that otherwise cannot be obtained".
      • Tradebacks never got explored when RBY was the current generation and are generally seen as a "Gen 1.5", so it is considered a separate metagame. Ergo, they are banned by default.
      • DV combinations and levels that are otherwise illegal are allowed even under Tradeback Clause. This is because Tradeback Clause was initially produced to ban Tradeback moves, and the ruling was not updated upon discovery of illegal DV combinations. Tradeback levels were indirectly allowed via a writing loophole that has since been made official for LC.
        • Mew Glitch-induced DV combinations are also accepted, as they provide no advantage over those obtained via Tradebacks.
    • Endless Battle scenarios include the following, which automatically prompt a tie under PS Policy;
      • Two opposing non-Transformed Dittos or some Transform Mew variants with no way to switch out that have at least 1 PP of Transform remaining each.
      • Two opposing frozen Pokemon with no way to switch out.
      • Two opposing Ghost-type Pokemon with 0 PP left.
      • Stadium OU fixes Ditto and Struggling Ghost-types by account of mechanical changes. However, some Transform Mew variants can still prompt endless battles.
  • Game-breaking bugs are handled in various ways;
    • Glitches that lead to desyncs (eg. Psywave dealing 0 damage on one side and 1 on the other) will result in move failure, allowing the game to continue.
      • Desyncs are defined as "errors involving one or both sides of the Link Battle drifting apart from each other, possibly resulting in unplayable game states."
      • These are grouped under a singular "patch" called "Desync Clause Mod".
      • When the "FIGHT" button is pressed, clicking off is considered to be banned so to account for Counter.
    • Glitches involving dividing by zero are ignored (eg. Some situations involving Reflect and Light Screen) under PS Policy.
    • If a glitch is not outright game-breaking, outside of strenuous circumstances, it will be simulated.
  • Exp. All-related exploits to reduce Stat Exp are accepted.

---

If you have any questions regarding anything tiering, feel free to reach out!
 
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Sabelette

from the river to the sea
is a Site Content Manageris a Community Contributoris a Top Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnus
The following is the 2022/2023 Tiering Timeline. Edits may be made later (probably to include Stadium and Tradebacks somewhere in the mix) but for now here's the current tiering timeline for OU, Ubers, UU, NU, and PU.

February 2022:
-NUSD ends

-First official NU Viability Rankings happen immediately after NUSD, using vapicuno method with qualified players meeting requirements set forth by the NU council.

-With the first Official NU Viability Rankings established, PU begins.

March 2022:
-SPL XIII ends

-Official OU Viability Rankings are done after in the normal manner.

June 2022:
-First official Ubers Viability Rankings, using vapicuno method with qualified players meeting requirements set forth by the Ubers council.

September/October 2022 (six months after OU VR):
-UU Viability Rankings happen using the vapicuno method with qualified players meeting requirements set forth by the UU council.

-Preliminary PU Viability Rankings update. These will be considered unofficial rankings.

March 2023:
-SPL XIV ends

-OU Viability Rankings are done as normal

-NU Viability Rankings are done as normal

June 2023:
-Ubers Viability Rankings are done as normal

September 2023:
-UU Viability Rankings are done as normal

-First official PU Rankings, using the vapicuno method with qualified players meeting requirements set forth by a future PU council.

-With the first Official PU Viability Rankings established, ZU begins (if there's any interest)


1/14/23 EDIT: Hey it's one of those "later edits" I mentioned before. Basically, due to a lot of suspect testing in RBY UU, there's been delays in coming out with official VRs for the tier, which in turn has affected NU/PU. I'm still leaving the above alone for the time being but just... please excuse the timeline's look during redesign lol
 
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Sabelette

from the river to the sea
is a Site Content Manageris a Community Contributoris a Top Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Outdated. See below post for details!

Howdy all! As you may have noticed, it is now 2024! And I think with UU (hopefully) settling now, we're going to be getting kind of on track with the tiering calendar. Here's what we're hopefully going to stick with over the next two years.

January 2024:
-Following UU Spotlight, UU Viability Rankings happen using the vapicuno method with qualified players meeting requirements set forth by the UU council. These are official rankings and as such, rises and drops will affect NU.

March 2024:
-Following SPL XV, OU Viability Rankings happen using the vapicuno method with qualified players meeting requirements set forth by the OU council. These are official rankings and as such, rises and drops will affect UU.

-NU Viability Rankings happen using the vapicuno method with qualified players meeting requirements set forth by the NU council. These are official rankings and as such, rises and drops will affect PU.

-ZU Viability Rankings happen using the vapicuno method with qualified players meeting requirements set forth by a yet-to-be-formed ZU council. These are unofficial rankings and as such, SU will not officially be created yet (though you can play it if you want).

September/October 2024 (six months after OU Viability Rankings):
-UU Viability Rankings happen using the vapicuno method with qualified players meeting requirements set forth by the UU council. These are official rankings and as such, rises and drops will affect NU.

-PU Viability Rankings happen using the vapicuno method with qualified players meeting requirements set forth by the PU council. These are official rankings and as such, rises and drops will affect ZU.

March 2025:
-Following SPL XVI, OU Viability Rankings happen using the vapicuno method with qualified players meeting requirements set forth by the OU council. These are official rankings and as such, rises and drops will affect UU.

-NU Viability Rankings happen using the vapicuno method with qualified players meeting requirements set forth by the NU council. These are official rankings and as such, rises and drops will affect PU.

-ZU Viability Rankings happen using the vapicuno method with qualified players meeting requirements set forth by a yet-to-be-formed ZU council. These are official rankings and as such, SU will be created (if there's any interest).

September/October 2025 (six months after OU Viability Rankings):
-UU Viability Rankings happen using the vapicuno method with qualified players meeting requirements set forth by the UU council. These are official rankings and as such, rises and drops will affect NU.

-PU Viability Rankings happen using the vapicuno method with qualified players meeting requirements set forth by the PU council. These are official rankings and as such, rises and drops will affect ZU.

-If there's any interest, SU Viability Rankings happen using the vapicuno method with qualified players meeting requirements set forth by those interested in the tier (not necessarily a council). These are unofficial rankings, so whatever is below SU will not be officially created (though you can play it if you want, and I'll call it Smogon 7U for now since 7U already exists).

Other tiers like Ubers, Stadium, Tradebacks, and Stadium Tradebacks (if there's interest in that last one) will hopefully happen once a year as well, though they're not on as strict a timeline as the tiers on the calendar above.
 
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Sabelette

from the river to the sea
is a Site Content Manageris a Community Contributoris a Top Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnus
(Please note this post was originally by phoopes and transferred to me, hence the third person references)

Hey everyone, big changes in this post to lower tiers! Big thank you to Sabelette for drafting this post since I have been SO busy lately.

---

Up until now RBY has theoretically run on a yearly schedule where OU and NU do a VR around March and UU and PU do one around September, giving a 6-month delay between tiering changes to allow for adjustments. However, this has not really worked out in practice, and delays in any tier's VR cause cascading delays to other tiers, resulting in disproportionate shifts when a VR finally happens; this also limits the number of tournaments that occur in the new meta and makes determining voting reqs tricky.

In light of this, Sabelette proposed a shift to running VRs on a 2-year cycle, as follows: Ubers, UU, and PU run a VR in 2024, NU and ZU run one in 2025, and repeat. These VRs will be official and will result in tiering changes, and will be done via the vapicuno method with a list of qualified voters. The council will be responsible for setting the tier cutoff. In off-years, the council will be responsible for a council-only VR by consensus that does NOT affect tiering; it is purely for keeping resources up to date and providing guidance to new players. This guarantees an entire year of tournaments after tiering changes before the next tier down VRs, ensuring a sufficient number of tournaments and ladder spotlights occur to test the changes out.

Other important notes: a ZU council will be formed immediately after ZU Olympiad's conclusion so that ZU can begin taking tiering action, create an initial unofficial VR, and plan for 2025's official VR. The UU council has stated an intent to a second VR later this year, and the PU council intends to VR this year. The NU council will delay a new VR until 2025.

Sabelette also created a sheet to document roles and responsibilities for lower tiers. Several roles are vacant and we are looking for people to fill them. Please message her if interested.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zW-TuNjNapEtQSiXDQXRT89uMaEy9YrBUExH0sP2o9I/edit?usp=sharing

---

This change was made with a lot of community input, so thank you to all those who have given feedback as well. RBY is a great, active community and I'm very happy that so many people are involved. Here's to many more years of RBY!
 
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