**This going to be largely stream of counciousness and tl;dr. I ask the you PLEASE read what I have to say before posting in this thread. In all honesty, I don't only want your opinion on what you think a competitive metagame is supposed to be. I want your answer in the context of the question I'm going to ask in the end of this thread(hint-hint for those who hate reading)**
After reading most of the UU thread, hearing theories on what the purpose of OU and UU are, and seeing that about every 2 months, bandwagons are created to unban pokes from Ubers to OU, it got me thinking.
What exactly does Smogon want for its established balanced metagames? (OU and UU)
I often hear that people want a competitive metagame that produces the most variety where the fewest amount of pokemon are banned. Doesn't Ubers already satisfy this desire, though? No pokemon are banned and in reagrds to variety, you can use ANY pokemon you want in your 6 member team. That seems like a lot of variety there.
But oh wait, no, people want variety AND a balanced metagame. Let me propose my first argument here:
1.) You can't be for variety and a balanced metagame. You can't increase one without decreasing the other. I define variety as having the freedom to be able to use the most options available (pretty much where you don't ban anything). Balance attempts to level out these options so, competitively, the most amount of options are viable.
My second argument is that:
2.) Although variety and balance are mutually detrimental, the Smogon community wants BOTH of these qualities in their metagame. Let me expand this further, people here at the Smogon community choose to be slightly hypocritical by choosing variety for one issue and advocating balance for the next.
Why is this bad? Because no one knows the purpose of the competitive metagame here at Smogon. If no one knows the purpose, then people will keep bringing up the issues with no consensus and, really, threads with no ultimate ideal or purpose. Good threads and (mostly) terrible threads coming up every month asking if this pokemon is OU or why Deoxys-D is in Ubers, why BL even exists, what's the deal with UU, why do we even have tiers, etc, etc.
Now why does this occur? I have deduced all of this from the posts I read at Smogon, chiefly those threads I first described. It really boils down to two sides of the competitive fence.
-The people who like Top-tiers (The people who only like winning). Top-tiers are inevitable in every competitive game. The top-tiers are the best of the best, they let skilled players win the most often in their respective game.
-The people who HATE top-tiers (The people who don't only like winning). These people are more balanced oriented. They want to see the most amount of competitively viable pokemon, and top-tiers take away from this. People want to be able to use random's like Hypno instead of Blissey because it helps the metagame not get so stagnant. These people want a competitively diverse metagame (but not necessarily full variety).
Why are so many pokemon in Ubers? Why do we even have UU here at Smogon? I thought Smogon only cared about competitive pokemon, and being competitive is all about playing to win.
Do people want the ability to choose whatever they want (playing Ubers with no Evasion/Species/Sleep) or do they want a metagame with the fewest amount of top-tiers? (Restrictions-ahoy! Lets ban everything except for Life Orb and Magikarp, at least its balanced). Please don't say you want both equally. How can you possibly make a metagame with absolute variety and balance? You must be leaning towards one side or the other, be honest with yourself.
What side are you guys on? And what do you want in your competitive Pokemon metagame?
**P.S. For the record, I'm on the Life Orb Magikarp side of the fence.
After reading most of the UU thread, hearing theories on what the purpose of OU and UU are, and seeing that about every 2 months, bandwagons are created to unban pokes from Ubers to OU, it got me thinking.
What exactly does Smogon want for its established balanced metagames? (OU and UU)
I often hear that people want a competitive metagame that produces the most variety where the fewest amount of pokemon are banned. Doesn't Ubers already satisfy this desire, though? No pokemon are banned and in reagrds to variety, you can use ANY pokemon you want in your 6 member team. That seems like a lot of variety there.
But oh wait, no, people want variety AND a balanced metagame. Let me propose my first argument here:
1.) You can't be for variety and a balanced metagame. You can't increase one without decreasing the other. I define variety as having the freedom to be able to use the most options available (pretty much where you don't ban anything). Balance attempts to level out these options so, competitively, the most amount of options are viable.
My second argument is that:
2.) Although variety and balance are mutually detrimental, the Smogon community wants BOTH of these qualities in their metagame. Let me expand this further, people here at the Smogon community choose to be slightly hypocritical by choosing variety for one issue and advocating balance for the next.
Why is this bad? Because no one knows the purpose of the competitive metagame here at Smogon. If no one knows the purpose, then people will keep bringing up the issues with no consensus and, really, threads with no ultimate ideal or purpose. Good threads and (mostly) terrible threads coming up every month asking if this pokemon is OU or why Deoxys-D is in Ubers, why BL even exists, what's the deal with UU, why do we even have tiers, etc, etc.
Now why does this occur? I have deduced all of this from the posts I read at Smogon, chiefly those threads I first described. It really boils down to two sides of the competitive fence.
-The people who like Top-tiers (The people who only like winning). Top-tiers are inevitable in every competitive game. The top-tiers are the best of the best, they let skilled players win the most often in their respective game.
-The people who HATE top-tiers (The people who don't only like winning). These people are more balanced oriented. They want to see the most amount of competitively viable pokemon, and top-tiers take away from this. People want to be able to use random's like Hypno instead of Blissey because it helps the metagame not get so stagnant. These people want a competitively diverse metagame (but not necessarily full variety).
Why are so many pokemon in Ubers? Why do we even have UU here at Smogon? I thought Smogon only cared about competitive pokemon, and being competitive is all about playing to win.
Do people want the ability to choose whatever they want (playing Ubers with no Evasion/Species/Sleep) or do they want a metagame with the fewest amount of top-tiers? (Restrictions-ahoy! Lets ban everything except for Life Orb and Magikarp, at least its balanced). Please don't say you want both equally. How can you possibly make a metagame with absolute variety and balance? You must be leaning towards one side or the other, be honest with yourself.
What side are you guys on? And what do you want in your competitive Pokemon metagame?
**P.S. For the record, I'm on the Life Orb Magikarp side of the fence.
