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Old 01-26-2015, 09:44 AM   #3851
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How on Earth can there be a thing as too much diversity. Being unable to prepare for everything is a good thing. It means you're never guaranteed to win. I mean...that's the point of Hearthstone, for instance.
You are never guaranteed a win anyway if you do prepare for everything; that's what skill is for and quite frankly if you can't prepare for everything, that skill gets taken out of the question and replaced with "all right, I'm losing from the start, good."

You can have too much diversity, and its exactly the issue with Gen VI OU right now.
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Old 01-26-2015, 05:06 PM   #3852
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How on Earth can there be a thing as too much diversity. Being unable to prepare for everything is a good thing. It means you're never guaranteed to win. I mean...that's the point of Hearthstone, for instance.
This.

What the hell is wrong with you people.
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Old 01-26-2015, 05:41 PM   #3853
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I can see where too much diversity is an issue. It takes away part of the skill if you can be dicked for the very beginning just because your team couldn't cover every single hole and your opponent has the perfect way to exploit it.
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Old 01-26-2015, 06:20 PM   #3854
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Yes but at the same time if one team beats all threats ever, it becomes essentially the "one true team" and the top becomes whoever can win mirror matches the best, and you can have people with no actual skill make it up much father than they actually should just by copy pasting that "one true team." That's not healthy, either.You act like not being able to hard counter everything with one team is so bad, but being able to do so is worse, really.
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Old 01-26-2015, 06:22 PM   #3855
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That's not how it works. Even if there was one true team, the people at the top would be the most skillful people.

Good Gen IV teams only had a weakness to one or two Pokemon. Just because a team can _answer_ (not counter) all the big threats doesn't mean it will be the top team either.
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Old 01-26-2015, 06:32 PM   #3856
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Let's review what I said for a moment, and how your response measures up, Blaze.

First, the whole unskilled players part. You interpreted my post to say that said unskilled players would be at the top. This is not what I said. I merely stated they would rise to places on the ladder much higher than their skill merits. This could be anywhere from 2000 to 1500, depending on how well their common sense measures up.

And the other thing I need to discuss, your second sentence. Because this clears the clouds over your position like going from Rain Dance to Sunny Day. The way you were talking, it sounded like if you had so much as one thing that you couldn't hard counter no matter how good your team was (Now I mean in number, not one specific threat, like between the two best teams you would have to choose a weakness to A or B), the meta was too diverse. Now that you've cleared up your position a bit more, I realize that you and I both think that utter nonsense, if I'm reading correctly (do tell me if I'm not, my eyes are still bad, if you know what I mean), so yes, teams should have a s few weaknesses as possible, but there should still be a sizable amount, just not a legion, of things that you'll be weak to no matter what (again, in number). This places enough emphasis on skill while removing enough weight from luck to create an enviornment in which there can never be one true team, but you still need to teambuilding competently to climb the ladder.
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Old 01-26-2015, 06:36 PM   #3857
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Well the only reason why unskilled people would be higher is because of people not running the true team. But they still won't be as good as the better skilled players, so there isn't a real issue. The issue comes in when this true team denies skills place, like with SwagPlay teams.

That is not what I meant at all (on teams needing no weaknesses that is), but at the moment, it isn't just one or two things. It's multiple things, because there are simply too many threats, and many of these threats have specific answers to them. Good teams now often have many holes, but only because there is no way to fill these holes.
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Old 01-26-2015, 06:40 PM   #3858
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In my opinion, one or two is still a little on the dry side. The or four is more agreeable to me. Five begins to push it, however. With three or four gaps in total on even the best teams, there's a narrow range to slip into when teambuilding for the top of the ladder that's it's not Geico-easy, but it's not narrow to the point of choking out all but three or so teams from the top.

What I believe is making the numbers such a huge issue is that power creep forces older stuff into obscurity, but at the same time the older things are what have more versatility. Starting in Gen 5, almost everything started having a specific niche or role to play, and had shallower movepools restricted to playing that role. This carried into Gen 6 with some notable exceptions (Greninja for one, though Protean is so easy to Exploit it's not even funny), and so all of these very specific role players have their shutdown capabilities reduced to only a select few things. The older things with their wider variety cannot alleviate this because power creep.

TL;DR: With the movesets of Pokemon shrinking into specific roles while also running alongside power creep, the number of threats one thing can take out has been shrunken down significantly, and OU keeps getting bigger with new additions, thus compounding the issue of what's largely relevant being able to cover less in a meta where more exists. It's a vicious cycle.
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Old 01-26-2015, 06:42 PM   #3859
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You seem to be implying that there can only be one combination of Pokemon that covers themselves well enough to have few holes. That's just not true. Also, teambuilding skill is obviously the least important aspect of it: its how you battle that's important.
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Old 01-26-2015, 06:50 PM   #3860
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Team Building is important though, because it's essentially the preliminary gate to success. You can have the greatest talent of anyone on the field itself, but if you can't make teams that can make plays like you're so apt to do when they need to, you won't go anywhere. If I suddenly got gud overnight, my current OU squad probably wouldn't take me places, it's admittedly subpar. So yes, skill on the field matters, but that's the building upon the foundation of teambuilding, if you'll pardon the pun.
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Old 01-26-2015, 06:51 PM   #3861
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Not really considering RMTs exist.
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Old 01-26-2015, 06:57 PM   #3862
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Point taken, but let's also consider that one team can only go so far in one portion of the ladder. That team I had back with my dedicated attempt pre-Aegislash ban, despite being from experienced folks like you, could only go so far, mostly because once one hit 1300 or so, what I began facing had more answers to what I was running.An RMT is no substitute for actual teambuilding skills. One has to learn eventually, after all, asking for help from others also carries the cost of them not wanting to give someone the ways to tear them six ways from Sunday.
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Old 01-26-2015, 06:58 PM   #3863
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Or you know, it could be because you were bad.

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Old 01-26-2015, 07:03 PM   #3864
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That could be a factor, yes, but theoretically one that I could have overcome from using the team enough to learn how to play well with it, which didn't happen. Despite knowing all the ins and out of the team from sticking with it for so long, 1300 marked a place where just some outside expertise wasn't going to be enough anymore, as a conglomerate of good things that could school most bottom level teams wasn't going to cut it anymore, because that was no longer what I was facing, because 1300 marks the point where teams start being built with having lost of synergy and support rather than a mess of HO and stall breaking. However, I decided to try to keep at it because I didn't want to bug you guys for another team and didn't trust my own abilities to make a team for that level on my own.
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Old 01-26-2015, 07:23 PM   #3865
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Let me put it like this: If in the next banlist for YGO, the meta as a result had 10 different "OU" decks, 5 different "BL" decks, and 5 "UU" decks, would that be an enjoyable meta? Believe it or not, people don't like playing under those metas.
I use the YGO analogy all the time when trying to explain this to Smogon people. And what you have just said is so incorrect that I must set things straight.

Part I: Yu-Gi-Oh! side of things

First of all, you've completely gotten 2013-era YGO wrong. Late 2014, early 2015 YGO may fit the bill of what you are describing, but when phoopes legendarily hosted his YGO tournament in 2013 during the Age of the Dragon Rulers, we lived in a world where YGO was characterized by a smorgasbord of "OU," "UU," and "RU" decks:
  • OU:
    • Dragon Rulers (but it should have been banned to Ubers )
    • Mermail
    • 4-Axis Fire Fist
    • 3-Axis Fire Fist
    • Bujin
    • Inzektors (still!)
    • Six Samurai
    • Stardust Stun™, a.k.a. Doppel's signature deck
    • Dark World
  • OU viable but arguably UU
    • frogs (which I'd like to place in OU given how good Concept is with them but in 2013 Concept was the only person I saw use them)
    • Madolche (which still went very far in our tournament)
    • burn decks
    • Exodia decks
  • UU viable but arguably RU
    • Lightsworn
    • HERO
    • I don't know any others with certainty because I have to be careful not to bleed things over from 2012 or before or from 2014 or after; also, I didn't play down in "RU" that much
"OU" saw a lot of decks. And even the "UU" decks were still OU-serviceable. I would lose to the occasional Exodia deck. I would semi-frequently lose to burn-stall decks. I would never lose to Lightsworn or E-Heroes but I often heard about how some of you guys would find them occasionally difficult. The simple fact of the matter is, 2013 YGO OU was incredibly diverse. And people enjoyed it. What people complained about was Dragon Rulers -- because Dragon Rulers forced a situation where you had to either run DR to win or also hardcore anti-DR to win against DR duelists. Once we saw the Summer 2013 ban list rolled out and Dragon Rulers was forced to morph into Dragunity Rulers, while it was still powerful it was no longer what it once was and YGO OU really flourished with diversity.

Fast forward to early 2015 and all I ever hear you guys talking about are:
  • Shadolls
  • Burning Abyss
  • Qliphorts
  • (upcoming IRL in North America, but already relevant for you guys on DN) Nekroz
  • Stardust Stun™, but that's only because of Doppel
So basically the meta revolves paper-rock-scissors-like around three decks -- Shadolls, Burning Abyss, and Qliphorts -- and you ask us to believe that this is the most popular YGO format ever.

The format that only you and Doppel can be arsed to play.

The format that the YGO players I know IRL keep groaning over.

Yeah, no, Blaze. YGO players liked their diversity in "OU." And from what I can tell, they appear to have lost it.

Part II: Pokémon side of things

In comparison with Generations III, V, and VI, Gen IV was characterized by its diversity. First and foremost. So when you write stuff like this:

Quote:
Originally Posted by blazeVA View Post
Good Gen IV teams only had a weakness to one or two Pokemon.
I feel like you're either 1) talking out of your ass about things that were way before your time or else 2) not remembering Gen IV OU correctly.

HGSS OU was where Stlbk and I got back in touch with one another. Where I'd say we became friends. (We hadn't really talked much until then. ) And in that format, not only did my kinda crappy team work -- so there's +1 for OU diversity -- but Stlbk, who laddered very well on P-O, had on his team such creatures as Breloom, Screens Jirachi, and -- right on the cusp between HGSS meta and BW1 meta -- Sableye. (One of the first! Steely was way ahead of his time when it came to calling Prankster Sableye's utility.) It was a diverse time for diverse players. So long as your favorites weren't complete and utter dog shit, you could find a way to make them work. Just ask DaveTheFishGuy, who often mentions his tales of successfully using all sorts of different Toxicroaks in the format. Or just ask Morgoth, who made it through a round or two of Loki's OU tournament with a mono-Bug team. (And keep in mind, s'il te plaît, that this was Gen IV mono-Bug we're talking about here.) Lower OU had a lot of diversity; and even upper OU had a huge list of MVPs.

One of the biggest complaints, in fact, about the BW1 meta once we were several months into it was that it was such a bland, repetitive list of Who's Whos compared with the HGSS meta we had known only a few months prior. BW1 OU was nothing but Copy+Paste sand and rain teams. Every sand team ran Tyranitar, Excadrill, and Gliscor. (Why wouldn't you!?) Every rain team ran Kingdra, Politoed, Ludicolo, and Ferrothorn. (Again: why wouldn't you?) Not only was it boring to see nothing but rain and sand, but it was especially boring to see them knowing that you already knew 50% to 100% of their constituents.

BW2 became ever so slightly more diverse -- in part thanks to bans meant to rein in sand and rain -- but it was still nothing compared with Gen IV at its prime. BW2 OU, even in its final moments, was characterized by a crapton of Terrakion, Keldeo, and genies.

But back to Gen IV for a second. Let's take a look at Infernape and Blaziken. In Gens 5 and 6, the mentality has always been, "Determine who is best and use him. Discard the inferior copy." But in Gen IV, you couldn't do that. Infernape was faster but weaker. Blaziken was slower but stronger. While Infernape ended up being the more popular choice, especially as he carved out a niche as a suicide lead, it was always a Pepsi and Coke thing with Infernape and Blaziken right to the very end of the format. People tend to forget that Blaziken didn't always have Speed Boost and wasn't always banned from OU either. He used to be slow(er than his competition), and he used to be seen in OU from time to time. Diversity.

In Gen IV, your Water slot was generally tailored around the specific needs of your team. Whether you chose to run a Starmie, Gyarados, Empoleon, or Vaporeon depended on what you would be using that Water-type to do. This is still true for a lot of team building, but please contrast it with Gen V Water decisions (where you just copy+pasted the Rain Team list from Smogon and called it a day) or Gen VI Water decisions (where it was Greninja or bust). You could easily find someone today who would argue, "Anyone who doesn't choose to run Greninja on their team is a fool." But try finding that person in 2008 with Gyarados or Starmie. It's a lot harder. Everyone recognized the best Waters as great, but no one was supreme above all the rest. Diversity.

Long story short: I like your choice of analogy but disagree entirely with where you chose to take it. First, YGO has long enjoyed a diverse meta; if it no longer does, it is only a very recent development in the game's long history. Second, Gen IV wasn't the least diverse meta -- it was one of the most diverse.

Last edited by Talon87; 01-26-2015 at 07:29 PM.
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Old 01-26-2015, 07:49 PM   #3866
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
I use the YGO analogy all the time when trying to explain this to Smogon people. And what you have just said is so incorrect that I must set you straight.
You could also not be an ass.

Quote:
Part I: Yu-Gi-Oh! side of things

First of all, you've completely gotten 2013-era YGO wrong. Late 2014, early 2015 YGO may fit the bill of what you are describing, but when phoopes legendarily hosted his YGO tournament in 2013 during the Age of the Dragon Rulers, we lived in a world where YGO was characterized by a smorgasbord of "OU," "UU," and "RU" decks:
  • OU:
    • Dragon Rulers (but it should have been banned to Ubers )
    • Mermail
    • 4-Axis Fire Fist
    • 3-Axis Fire Fist
    • Bujin
    • Inzektors (still!)
    • Six Samurai
    • Stardust Stun™, a.k.a. Doppel's signature deck
    • Dark World
  • Dragon Rulers out of that list is really the only one which could be considered OU in the March 2013. You completely missed Spellbooks/Prophecy which was also an OU deck. You can actually back this up with tourney results, Dragon Rulers and to a lesser extent Prophecy completely dominated.

    Mermail, 3AFF, and maybe Six Sams were UU. Bujins were irrelevant because they didn't have most of their support. Inzektors were smashed to bits, Stardust Stun is a weird one to consider but I would much rather put that to Dopple's skill as a duelist. Dark World was way too easily sided against and I very often lost most of my duels to DRulers.

    Quote:
  • OU viable but arguably UU
    • frogs (which I'd like to place in OU given how good Concept is with them but in 2013 Concept was the only person I saw use them)
    • Madolche (which still went very far in our tournament)
    • burn decks
    • Exodia decks
  • Frogs lost a lot of their advantage due to being powercreeped. Monarchs weren't as good as they once were and even Concept's deck just lost if you kept the field spell off the field. Madolche were definitely UU.

    Burn and Exodia don't count, the only good ones are self-touch decks (Deep Draw/HfE - Chain Strike) and fall under the same idea as SwagPlay.

    Quote:
  • UU viable but arguably RU
    • Lightsworn
    • HERO
    • I don't know any others with certainty because I have to be careful not to bleed things over from 2012 or before or from 2014 or after; also, I didn't play down in "RU" that much
Yeah pretty much.

Quote:
"OU" saw a lot of decks. And even the "UU" decks were still OU-serviceable. I would lose to the occasional Exodia deck. I would semi-frequently lose to burn-stall decks. I would never lose to Lightsworn or E-Heroes but I often heard about how some of you guys would find them occasionally difficult. The simple fact of the matter is, 2013 YGO OU was incredibly diverse. And people enjoyed it. What people complained about was Dragon Rulers -- because Dragon Rulers forced a situation where you had to either run DR to win or also hardcore anti-DR to win against DR duelists. Once we saw the Summer 2013 ban list rolled out and Dragon Rulers was forced to morph into Dragunity Rulers, while it was still powerful it was no longer what it once was and YGO OU really flourished with diversity.
You've just contradicted yourself massively. You say it was diverse, but also that people had to either run DR to win or go anti hardcore DR (which was near impossible) to win. That's not a diverse meta, its the complete opposite. People enjoyed it because the mirror was skillful. Even at the time of just using the deck, I could already point out major mistakes phoopes had made (discard two Babies to summon a big one instead of doing 1 baby 1 daddy).

Quote:
Fast forward to early 2015 and all I ever hear you guys talking about are:
  • Shadolls
  • Burning Abyss
  • Qliphorts
  • (upcoming IRL in North America, but already relevant for you guys on DN) Nekroz
  • Stardust Stun™, but that's only because of Doppel
So basically the meta revolves paper-rock-scissors-like around three decks -- Shadolls, Burning Abyss, and Qliphorts -- and you ask us to believe that this is the most popular YGO format ever.
I never once said this. Are you mad???

Quote:
The format that only you and Doppel can be arsed to play.

The format that the YGO players I know IRL keep groaning over.

Yeah, no, Blaze. YGO players liked their diversity in "OU." And from what I can tell, they appear to have lost it.
You're mad. Completely mad. I never said this was the best format ever, christ.

Quote:
Part II: Pokémon side of things

In comparison with Generations III, V, and VI, Gen IV was characterized by its diversity. First and foremost. So when you write stuff like this:


I feel like you're either 1) talking out of your ass about things that were way before your time or else 2) not remembering Gen IV OU correctly.
I've actually looked at feature RMTs at the time, they often only had one or two weaknesses to them (the one I remember in particular only had a real weakness to DD Gyarados.)

Quote:
HGSS OU was where Stlbk and I got back in touch with one another. Where I'd say we became friends. (We hadn't really talked much until then. ) And in that format, not only did my kinda crappy team work -- so there's +1 for OU diversity -- but Stlbk, who laddered very well on P-O, had on his team such creatures as Breloom, Screens Jirachi, and -- right on the cusp between HGSS meta and BW1 meta -- Sableye. (One of the first! Steely was way ahead of his time when it came to calling Prankster Sableye's utility.) It was a diverse time for diverse players. So long as your favorites weren't complete and utter dog shit, you could find a way to make them work. Just ask DaveTheFishGuy, who often mentions his tales of successfully using all sorts of different Toxicroaks in the format. Or just ask Morgoth, who made it through a round or two of Loki's OU tournament with a mono-Bug team. (And keep in mind, s'il te plaît, that this was Gen IV mono-Bug we're talking about here.) Lower OU had a lot of diversity; and even upper OU had a huge list of MVPs.

One of the biggest complaints, in fact, about the BW1 meta once we were several months into it was that it was such a bland, repetitive list of Who's Whos compared with the HGSS meta we had known only a few months prior. BW1 OU was nothing but Copy+Paste sand and rain teams. Every sand team ran Tyranitar, Excadrill, and Gliscor. (Why wouldn't you!?) Every rain team ran Kingdra, Politoed, Ludicolo, and Ferrothorn. (Again: why wouldn't you?) Not only was it boring to see nothing but rain and sand, but it was especially boring to see them knowing that you already knew 50% to 100% of their constituents.

BW2 became ever so slightly more diverse -- in part thanks to bans meant to rein in sand and rain -- but it was still nothing compared with Gen IV at its prime. BW2 OU, even in its final moments, was characterized by a crapton of Terrakion, Keldeo, and genies.

But back to Gen IV for a second. Let's take a look at Infernape and Blaziken. In Gens 5 and 6, the mentality has always been, "Determine who is best and use him. Discard the inferior copy." But in Gen IV, you couldn't do that. Infernape was faster but weaker. Blaziken was slower but stronger. While Infernape ended up being the more popular choice, especially as he carved out a niche as a suicide lead, it was always a Pepsi and Coke thing with Infernape and Blaziken right to the very end of the format. People tend to forget that Blaziken didn't always have Speed Boost and wasn't always banned from OU either. He used to be slow(er than his competition), and he used to be seen in OU from time to time. Diversity.

In Gen IV, your Water slot was generally tailored around the specific needs of your team. Whether you chose to run a Starmie, Gyarados, Empoleon, or Vaporeon depended on what you would be using that Water-type to do. This is still true for a lot of team building, but please contrast it with Gen V Water decisions (where you just copy+pasted the Rain Team list from Smogon and called it a day) or Gen VI Water decisions (where it was Greninja or bust). You could easily find someone today who would argue, "Anyone who doesn't choose to run Greninja on their team is a fool." But try finding that person in 2008 with Gyarados or Starmie. It's a lot harder. Everyone recognized the best Waters as great, but no one was supreme above all the rest. Diversity.

Long story short: I like your choice of analogy but disagree entirely with where you chose to take it. First, YGO has long enjoyed a diverse meta; if it no longer does, it is only a very recent development in the game's long history. Second, Gen IV wasn't the least diverse meta -- it was one of the most diverse.
I never said Gen IV was the least diverse meta, but even if it was, that doesn't make it bad. It had the right amount of diversity. It clearly isn't as diverse as Gen VI, because Gen VI simply has so many more threats to it. It's part of the reason RU was introduced in Gen V, they needed more tiers. When things are diverse enough that you aren't going to get beaten by a new people with a number of Pokemon, that's good.

In contrast, I consider preBW2 meta to be the best because the unbalanced threats that were introduced in BW2 weren't around, and the hits had made rain and sand less ridiculous made for a diverse meta. It obviously wasn't diverse at first because of how powerful rain was.

Greninja is an interesting case because it was only just unbalanced, and there were still options you could run. Azumarill, Keldeo, Mega Gyarados, Mega Slowbro etc were all still viable options. I'd imagine that there are more viable Waters now then in Gen IV.

I'm not sure where you are getting some of your points, but meh. Judging from the beginning of your post, you aren't in a mood to have a conversation and just want to make me look stupid.
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Old 01-26-2015, 08:23 PM   #3867
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Too much to reply to in one post. Let's break this up into halves then.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blazeVA View Post
Dragon Rulers out of that list is really the only one which could be considered OU in the March 2013.
I didn't say just March 2013. I said 2013. I establish this point rather clearly later in the post when referencing the bans that hit DR and forced it into the Dragunity Rulers subset.

But even in March 2013, I would say that DR wasn't the only OU deck in the format. It was the only Ubers deck in the format. You're being a bit dumb, Blaze, if you're going to sit there and tell me that the most broken deck in the history of YGO was its seminal format's only "OU" deck. That doesn't even make sense.

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Originally Posted by blazeVA View Post
You completely missed Spellbooks/Prophecy which was also an OU deck.
Didn't miss it. Spellbooks didn't show its face (at least not on UPN) until the third tournament iirc, the 2014 one hosted by Fallen Icarus. If I am mistaken, then I am mistaken, but that is the reason for its not being included in the list. Was pretty sure it didn't get the cards it needed to be stupidly broken until the third tournament, the one where it was you vs. Doppel going into the finals. I don't recall you doing very well at all in the 2013 tournament. I'm pretty sure without looking that that tournament's Top 4 was Fallen (Madolche) or myself (4-Axis), Tdos (Six Sams), Doppel (Stardust Stun), and phoopes (DR). I don't know if you made Top 8 or what, but I very much doubt that you were running your spellcasters back then. That was a 2014 development.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blazeVA View Post
You can actually back this up with tourney results, Dragon Rulers and to a lesser extent Prophecy completely dominated.
Do we have to go look them up? Fine. I wanted to be lazy but fuck this shit:

Spoiler: show

Top 4 didn't even include Doppel. It was Tdos (Six Sams), phoopes (DR), myself (4-Axis), and Fallen (Madolche iirc; NOT looking it up too). As for you and your decks ...

"BlazeVA: Battlin' Boxer/Warrior swarm, Dark World, Dragon Rulers"

No Spellbooks. Because I'm pretty fucking sure that was a 2014 development. And that belief is why I left it off the list in the first place.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blazeVA View Post
Mermail, 3AFF, and maybe Six Sams were UU.
No. Say what you will for the other two, Mermail was 100% OU. It was the most common deck at the time besides DR. I am not going to run along with your nonsensical idea of a one-deck OU tier, an absent Ubers tier, and 90% of the decks jam fucking packed into what you're hilariously insisting on calling "UNDERUSED".

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Originally Posted by blazeVA View Post
Bujins were irrelevant because they didn't have most of their support.
You're too biased by the cards they would later get. They were already popular enough back then. The moment Doppel built me my 4-Axis deck, I was annoyed by the Bujin decks I kept seeing that were making use of Tenki and Tensu. "Imposters, " I'd think of them. And I saw them often. And they did well enough.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blazeVA View Post
Inzektors were smashed to bits.
Not in 2013. They were hit hard by bans that made them no longer the broken-as-shit deck they once were but they were still ridiculous first-turn-win decks that operated just fine thanks to ample ways to ensure that Hornet made it into the hand ASAP.

It wasn't until the Fallen-hosted tournament that Inzektors had fallen off the map. I'm really starting to think that you've confused 2014 for 2013.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blazeVA View Post
Stardust Stun is a weird one to consider but I would much rather put that to Dopple's skill as a duelist.
This is like saying that you don't want to consider the Baton Pass team (pre-bans) because it was created by an insightful player. It may well have been, but that doesn't change the fact that anyone who learns how to use the deck can use it effectively to do what Doppel does. I have used the deck (clumsily, I will admit) in test games with Doppel and frequently beaten him with his own deck. It's a solid deck. It definitely deserves a spot on the list.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blazeVA View Post
Dark World was way too easily sided against and I very often lost most of my duels to DRulers.
I mostly played in Singles, so the sideboard is irrelevant. As for the second claim, this is a lame excuse to not include Dark World on the list. Every deck lost to Dragon Rulers. Even other Dragon Rulers. No. We're keeping Dark World on the list because it was a solid deck, especially after the DR neuter in the summer.

And speaking of summer ...

Quote:
Originally Posted by blazeVA View Post
You've just contradicted yourself massively. You say it was diverse, but also that people had to either run DR to win or go anti hardcore DR (which was near impossible) to win. That's not a diverse meta, its the complete opposite.
I haven't contradicted myself whatsoever. In Spring 2013, the diversity of YGO's OU tier applied only to the bottom 70%. (But still the bottom 70%.) Anyone who was piloting Dragon Rulers competently was going to rocket up to the top 30% because it was basically an auto-win deck against most other decks in the history of the game up until that point. In Summer 2013, that diversity extended to the entire format: with DR neutered but Dragunity Rulers still being quite fearsome, people could now dance toe-to-toe with the DR creatures whilst using their favorite OU decks. And they did. All the fucking time.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blazeVA View Post
People enjoyed it because the mirror was skillful.
No one enjoyed the mirror: because it was luck-based. Dragon Rulers had zero skill to it. It was an auto-pilot deck. In my very first time EVER piloting DR, ever, and not even doing things optimally, I smashed Doppel's Stardust Stun to smithereens. He was playing seriously and he lost to a "What does this button do? " player. That only lasted for one or two games. By game 3, I understood how to pilot the deck optimally. And that was where skill ended and luck began. Who gets the better opening hand. Who gets the better draws. Factors which no players that truly favors skill are going to want to see determining their duels' outcomes. Yet that's precisely what the DR vs. DR mirror was: pure luck, zero skill.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blazeVA View Post
I never once said this. Are you mad???
And I never once said that you said it. I am angry now because you're fucking pissing me off with this selective reading nonsense. Be angry with me all you like but don't accuse me of saying things I never said.

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Originally Posted by blazeVA View Post
You're mad. Completely mad. I never said this was the best format ever, christ.
Again, I never said you did either. All I said is that you and Doppel are the only two people left who play it. That sentence doesn't translate to "Doppel and Blaze love this format." It translates to "No one else can even tolerate it." You can at least tolerate it. Clearly. Because you still play.

Pokémon replies in Part 2. Or never, if we end up calling it off because you read this reply and realize "Sweet baby Moses, I misread things and mistook 2014 for 2013. "
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Old 01-26-2015, 08:32 PM   #3868
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http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Lord_of_the_Tachyon_Galaxy

Take a look through this list. You might notice something!

Spellbook of Judgment. Aka the card that completely broke Spellbooks. I'm sorry, you are the one that can't even get your facts straight.

>tourney results
...
...
...
...
...
I'm gonna walk out here. Or no actually:

http://www.pojo.biz/board/showthread.php?t=1139077

I'm going to leave this here to show you what I mean. When I mean tourney results, I don't mean our little hokey tourney.

Quote:
No one enjoyed the mirror: because it was luck-based. Dragon Rulers had zero skill to it. It was an auto-pilot deck. In my very first time EVER piloting DR, ever, and not even doing things optimally, I smashed Doppel's Stardust Stun to smithereens. He was playing seriously and he lost to a "What does this button do? " player. That only lasted for one or two games. By game 3, I understood how to pilot the deck optimally. And that was where skill ended and luck began. Who gets the better opening hand. Who gets the better draws. Factors which no players that truly favors skill are going to want to see determining their duels' outcomes. Yet that's precisely what the DR vs. DR mirror was: pure luck, zero skill.
Oh so you based your opinions on not the mirror match? K. The fact that you haven't recognized that the mirror had a completely different win condition from any other match shows you don't know what you are talking about. True Facts: Big Eye was completely win-moar in the mirror because of Crimson Blader. Resolving Blader was game.
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Old 01-26-2015, 08:42 PM   #3869
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Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
I use the YGO analogy all the time when trying to explain this to Smogon people. And what you have just said is so incorrect that I must set things straight.
When you start a post like this, you're clearly not looking for a peaceful discussion/argument.

Anyways, I might make a full reply tonight since I'll probably stay up late when I get home, but just responding to something I can do quickly, Blaziken was almost never used in the upper reaches of Gen IV. And you can still use the inferior choice in today's meta too. Suicune may not have the defenses of Mega Slowbro or the offensive presence combined with bulk that Azumarill brings, but it has a niche as well. Yet it isn't common at all at high level play, much like Blaziken in Gen IV. Not much has changed except now there instead of one superior option and one inferior option with a niche, there's 3-4 superior options and the same amount of inferior options with niches.
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Old 01-26-2015, 08:47 PM   #3870
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Originally Posted by blazeVA View Post
Oh so you based your opinions on not the mirror match? K.
That isn't what I did. Spelling it out for you:

Quote:
No one enjoyed the mirror: because it was luck-based.



*and then a justification of the claim that it was luck-based follows immediately after*



Dragon Rulers had zero skill to it. It was an auto-pilot deck. In my very first time EVER piloting DR, ever, and not even doing things optimally, I smashed Doppel's Stardust Stun to smithereens. He was playing seriously and he lost to a "What does this button do? " player. That only lasted for one or two games. By game 3, I understood how to pilot the deck optimally. And that was where skill ended and luck began.



*having justified the claim, I return us to our regularly-scheduled programming*


Who gets the better opening hand. Who gets the better draws. Factors which no players that truly favors [sic] skill are going to want to see determining their duels' outcomes. Yet that's precisely what the DR vs. DR mirror was: pure luck, zero skill.
The bulk of the paragraph wound up becoming the justification for the tail end of the very first sentence, but the very first sentence was the rebuttal to your claim and I return to that point at the end of the paragraph. You say people liked the DR mirror match. I say they didn't because it was a no-skill, all-luck match-up.

Putting it into Pokémon terms, it's like when you're each down to your final Pokémon, you happen to have the exact same final Pokémon -- same species, same mega state, same nature, same IVs and EVs, same exact everything -- you're both within one hit of winning the game, you both order the same attack, and it falls to a coin flip. That isn't skill. Anything that came before might have been, but (per our example) everything that came before equaled out in the end. The ultimate deciding factor for this match is luck.

It was the same thing with a DR vs. DR mirror. It was purely a question of who could get out the game's win conditions faster. Which in turn becomes a set of secondary questions: who has the better opening hand, who gets the better draws, etc.

Like I have said from the very beginning.
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Old 01-26-2015, 08:53 PM   #3871
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Dude, you can't say that the mirror was luck-based when you never played it. You played against Stardust Stun, a deck that was weaker than Dragon Rulers. Dragon Rulers had no skill against weaker match-ups, because it so easily dominated them. I've played against Qliphorts, the "no-skill" deck of this format, and I still won easily every time. I'm well aware of the strength of the deck I used in the tail-end of the format, because my Match W/L ratio is primarily because of that. I've played the mirror, its not the same match. I was also bad, so I lost a good portion of the time.
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Old 01-26-2015, 08:53 PM   #3872
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Alright, so we've established Pokemon is a heavily luck based game (Surprise, surprise), and that Yugioh still makes absolutely no sense unless you dedicate an unhealthy amount of time and willpower towards it. Back to actually discussing Pokemon instead of what decides a mirror match between two overpowered Dragon Master Blaster decks, what level of diversity do you think is healthy for Pokemon, why, and what steps should be taken to achieve this diversity while still retaining a healthy amount of skill necessary?
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Old 01-26-2015, 08:54 PM   #3873
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparkbeat View Post
Blaziken was almost never used in the upper reaches of Gen IV. And you can still use the inferior choice in today's meta too. Suicune may not have the defenses of Mega Slowbro or the offensive presence combined with bulk that Azumarill brings, but it has a niche as well. Yet it isn't common at all at high level play, much like Blaziken in Gen IV. Not much has changed except now there instead of one superior option and one inferior option with a niche, there's 3-4 superior options and the same amount of inferior options with niches.
You appear to be conflating 1 for 2:
  1. not being common in the top 10% of OU battles
  2. not being present and/or worthy of use in the top 10% of OU battles
I won't disagree with you that Blaziken was the less common choice. I said as much in my original post. (That ultimately Infernape won out, particularly for the niche he carved out as a prime suicide lead, a niche Blaziken had no place in.) But even while Blaziken might have officially been UU, there were still mid-to-upper level players in OU who would use one because it specifically filled a need on their team that, per the damage calcs, Infernape did not.
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Old 01-26-2015, 09:06 PM   #3874
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Originally Posted by Sparkbeat View Post
Back to actually discussing Pokemon instead of what decides a mirror match between two overpowered Dragon Master Blaster decks, what level of diversity do you think is healthy for Pokemon, why, and what steps should be taken to achieve this diversity while still retaining a healthy amount of skill necessary?
I think Rangeet and Kush have a point about how lots of diversity isn't a bad thing. If there's not much diversity, then almost everyone would use the same things (Granted OU is almost about using the same things...right?), and it wouldn't be all that exciting to battle. (Oh wow I am creative now aren't I?). And besides, if you do have a bad match up, wouldn't this "skill" be able to make the game closer even if you do lose? (OK I'm wrong, but I do get what Blaze is trying to say. Yeah its really frustrating getting beaten by someone of lower skill because they just so happen to have a team you can't counter/check.)

Yeah just chiming in with an objectively wrong opinion...yup.
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Old 01-26-2015, 09:27 PM   #3875
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I was going to toss this Blaze's way before he ever got a reply in. Then I was really going to toss it his way once he started to reply.

But even if you want to end the bickering, Sparkbeat, what I'm about to share next is still relevant to the discussion you've settled on. So buckle up and prepare for ... JIRACHI!

Jirachi, and Why Smogon Has Lost Their Way

In modern (Gen 6) discussions about suspect tests and bans, a visible majority of Smogon staff members and their vocal supporters have argued that creatures who can run 2+ radically different sets effectively are an unhealthy thing for the meta and that they should be banned. We've seen these arguments used to justify the bans of Mega Lucario (two main sets), Aegislash (three main sets), and Greninja (two main sets with myriad permutations).

But in Generation 4, things were quite different. In Generation 4, a Pokémon's ability to run more than one set effectively wasn't seen as a bad thing. Rather, it was celebrated.

Nowhere does that shine more brilliantly true than with the Gen 4 Smogon Pokédex entry for Jirachi. Now, you'll have to forgive me: Smogon's Gen 6 redesign of the website has fucked everything up and made it difficult for me to prove my point by simply providing you a link. This is because we have the Ubers, OU, and other formats' sets all mixed together on one page. But I can still copy and paste the OU ones for you. Or, since you have eyes and know how the Internet works, I can just give you the link, list off the set names, and let you read through them at your leisure:

1. Choice Scarf
  • Iron Head
  • Fire Punch
  • Ice Punch
  • Thunder Punch / Trick / U-turn
2. Choice Specs
  • Doom Desire
  • Grass Knot / Thunderbolt
  • Flash Cannon / Psychic
  • Trick
3. Dual Screens
  • Reflect
  • Light Screen
  • Wish
  • U-Turn
4. Mixed Attacker @ Expert Belt
  • Iron Head
  • Fire Punch
  • Ice Punch
  • Grass Knot / Thunderbolt
5. Specially Defensive
  • Body Slam
  • Iron Head
  • Protect / Wish
  • Fire Punch
6. SubCM
  • Substitute
  • Calm Mind
  • Thunderbolt
  • Flash Cannon / Psychic
7. Substitute + Thunder Wave
  • Substitute
  • Body Slam / Thunder Wave
  • Iron Head
  • Fire Punch
8. Offensive Calm Mind
  • Calm Mind
  • Psychic
  • Grass Knot / Thunderbolt
  • HP:Fire / HP:Ground
9. Wish + Calm Mind
  • Calm Mind
  • Wish
  • Thunderbolt
  • Flash Cannon / Psychic
10. Wish Support
  • Wish
  • U-Turn
  • Body Slam / Thunder Wave
  • Ice Punch / Iron Head
Ten sets. Ten sets that made it onto Jirachi's OU article back during Gen 4. Now, granted: times have changed, Smogon has tightened up on how many articles it will publish per creature, and several of these are only slight variations on others of them. But I think we can all agree that, at a bare minimum, there are five unique sets here:
  • physically offensive w/ speed boost
  • specially offensive w/ power boost
  • mixed offensive
  • defensive
  • team support
And I think we can agree that that final bullet point really does deserve an expansion given that screens support =/= wish passing =/= spreading paralysis. So yes. The point is that, in Gen IV, Jirachi boasted an incredible number of sets.

And this was one of the things that was so celebrated about Jirachi during Gen 4. It would be lunacy to parade around an OU Pokémon's ability to do multiple tasks in the current climate -- it's a swift trip to the gallows for your favorite team member if you do that! =\ -- but back in Gen 4 it was something that showed up in near about every issue of The Smog. OU kings were championed either for doing one job supremely well or else for doing numerous jobs very well.

And it wasn't just Jirachi who had tons of OU sets. Heatran? Ten sets. Tyranitar? Seven sets. Gengar? Seven sets. Seeing a pattern here? Great Pokémon often have a great number of viable sets. Or at least, they were advertised this way back in Gen 4.

Then the Fire Nation attacked things changed. =\ And Smogon slowly lost its way.

Today, we have a site that argued that Mega Lucario was "too good" simply because it could run either a potent physical set or a potent special set and that "this reduces battles to a coin flip." What would this ban council have made of the Gen 4 kings and queens of OU!? "Oh man, we simply must ban Jirachi! It walls all of my favorite Dragons AND it can run seven different sets effectively! Will it be scarfed? Will it be specs'd? Will it Calm Mind? Sub? Set up screens? YOU WON'T KNOW UNTIL IT'S TOO LATE!"

So to answer your questions, Sparkbeat ...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparkbeat View Post
What level of diversity do you think is healthy for Pokemon
In an ideal world I'd like it if the creature diversity of Gen 4 OU and Gen 4 UU could be merged into one tier where everyone was viable at the top end of the tier. Not going to happen with Pokémon as we currently know it, unfortunately, but it's what I'd like to see. 55 main creatures in OU, while it may sound big, is not nearly enough diversity for people who play frequently. We need at least 100, and it'd be a nice dream to have 200+. Keep things fresh. At the top, top, top top end of the tier, I want to see at least 50 creatures.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparkbeat View Post
Why?
Personal preference. The game becomes boring when it's the same few creatures again and again and again. It's made even worse when they all run the same moves, items, natures, etc.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparkbeat View Post
What steps should be taken to achieve this diversity while still retaining a healthy amount of skill necessary?
Before I can even answer this question, are we coming at this from Smogon's end ("prune the bush to save it!") or from Game Freak's end ("overhaul the entire system if we have to! just DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP!")?
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