Warzoid's analysis of this test is why I fail to see this suspect test as a good test. It does not represent the mindset of the majority of players that should have been voting in this test. Including the users that took over 100 games to get reqs really skewed the results, and now Hydreigon's been allowed to say in UU. I don't necessarily think this is a massive problem, but it certainly doesn't help the current situation. I agree that Celebi - a much bigger problem - has made Hydreigon significantly worse, but I do not agree that Celebi should shoulder all of the blame. Hydreigon has been a restricting factor in the UU metagame for a while. Taking away Alakazam made the non-scarf sets more viable. Taking away Salamence made all of its sets move viable. It just so happens that we got Celebi at around the same time of the Salamence ban and any credit that effect had on Hydreigon was largely ignored in favour of Celebi's effect.
Long story short, I don't agree with certain playstyles being forced into running combinations of Sylveon / Blissey / etc to handle Hydreigon. Hydreigon wasn't the biggest problem in the metagame, but removing it was a step in the right direction. Regardless, Hydreigon stays in UU. I do think we can learn something moving forward though:
57% of the good to very good users (>80% GXE) claimed Hydreigon was problematic enough to warrant a ban, whereas 60% of the average to lesser users (< 80% GXE) claimed it wasn't. I don't want to read like an elitist jackass, but which group do you think had a better idea of Hydreigon's effect on the metagame? In any other situation, had users with a GXE greater than 80 claimed one thing, but a larger group of users with a GXE of less than 80 claimed another, which of the two groups would be considered right? If you want to read this as me thinking that anyone under a GXE of 80 shouldn't have voted, that's not quite the point.
Consider the impact the 34 users with >100gp had on this test. By taking away the votes contributed by just this camp of voters, the gap of Hydreigon staying UU shrinks to 2 votes. The more you shrink this restriction to better visualize an "ideal" pool of voters (by say limiting to 70-80 games played, even 90gp), Hydreigon is banned from UU. What I'm trying to get at is without a cap on minimum GXE (or games played, they work both ways) or a more "difficult" b-value, you end up with these loud majorities of "lesser" players skewing test results. Players with a GXE lower than 76.5% shouldn't make suspect decisions. Period. I get that luck can be a factor (which is why I like a benchmark of 90gp at most, ideally around 70-80), but starting a suspect run over and finishing it in 60-70 games isn't difficult. A GXE cutoff of 76.5% results in a games limit of 94gp. For example, I was incredibly unlucky during the middle of my run, but still got reqs in less games played than the cutoff mentioned by warzoid. Very few notable players should therefore fall under that limit, so I see it as a non-issue if someone like myself doesn't hit a GXE above 76.5% during a suspect test, since you would lose out on like 2 votes at most.
As it stands, Underused is the only tier without a GXE limit on its tests. This is a problem, and this test demonstrates why. Until we start using weighted results based on GXE or Games played or set limits on GXE/GP, we can't continue running tests like this. Hydreigon should have been banned; the surprised reactions from a lot of the "do not ban" camp suggest this. Moving forward, UU needs to set a limit in and around the 77.5 GXE range and follow suit with other official tiers. Otherwise, what happens when (read: if) Celebi gets its suspect test and the same thing happens? Or Sylveon?
And I do understand the sentiments of wanting UU to be a community-inclusive tier: Smogon is in itself a community and every user should feel welcome and want to participate. But is maintaining that sentiment at the cost of the quality of tiering policy worth it? A bad decision was made here because we cater to the community as a whole instead of catering to a smaller group that plays this metagame at a higher level. Exclusive doesn't need to be a negative stance when you're trying to sort out the play-ability of a metagame. It's in part the reason kokoloko's system was so goddamned effective: decisions were made by top players to quickly (and successfully) produce a stable metagame. Establishing a limit on minimum GXE doesn't make our tiering policy as "behind closed doors" as the archaic council systems. It enforces a non-rigorous user voting standard and should be considered as a positive addition to our policy.
A lot of us just spent a fair bit of time laughing at Rarelyused for not banning Alomomola and suspecting Dugtrio instead, even though Alomomola will still remain a massive pain in the ass for their metagame. Meanwhile, we just did the same thing. The only difference being switching into Hydreigon is a crapshoot at best: the counterplay effectively revolves around having an answer to the Scarf set or "out-guessing" your opponent. Set a limit on minimum GXE and don't make the same mistake twice.