Fireburn this is a response from
brokenwings that I'm conveying here because he doesn't have PR access due to not being a badgeholder. Most Ubers players may know who he is, some may not. Regardless that isn't the concern but thought I would preface by establishing he's pretty in tune with the Ubers meta for awhile now and on his behalf would like to share his response.
This thread has largely been discussing whether or not Primal Groudon should be banned, which is besides the point. The real question is whether or not the banning philosophy of Ubers should change. Whether or not to ban Primal Groudon will follow what we decide from there.
First, let's establish what Ubers tiering philosophy is as it stands now:
1) Ubers does not care about overcentralization. The top Pokemon of past Uber metagames have routinely hit ~50% usage or more. We currently have a Pokemon that hits 70% usage at the very tippy top of the ladder. We don't care. Hypercentralization does not mean Ubers is unplayable and alone is not a reason to ban something. It's not even necessarily a bad thing.
No argument here.
2) Ubers does not care about balance, and will not ban to preserve metagame balance. This is ultimately because that's OU job. OU is, under our tiering system, the fundamental balanced metagame. Any tier below it is expected to adhere to similar philosophies of balance and reasonable centralization, while any tier above it is by definition overcentralized, with no active concerns for balance. If we started banning things from Ubers for balance reasons, that would ultimately defeat the purpose of OU and call our entire tiering hierarchy into question. Furthermore, an imbalanced metagame does not correlate to one that is unenjoyable (hi DPP Ubers).
This definition seems outdated with the advent of the anything goes tier. I’ll get to this later though.
Replying to last sentence- For one, this is completely subjective, and for a lot of people it absolutely does (depending on the degree of imbalance ofc.) If it didn’t then this thread wouldn’t exist, and you wouldn’t be hearing nearly as much complaining to do something about it. I don’t know a ton about DPP Ubers but it seems ridiculous to compare the balance of ORAS Ubers to DPP. No mons in DPP skew the meta or accomplish as much with a single free turn as much as Mega Mence or Primal Groudon (or GeoXern lol.)
3) Ubers will only make bans to preserve a playable competitive metagame. This is why we have retained basic clauses, and have further banned things such as Swagger and Moody. Normally, this does not extend to Pokemon, except for recently with the banning of Mega Rayquaza, as its sheer power gave it zero checks and made all playstyles completely unviable except the offensive teams it found its home on. The concept of "playable" is loose, but it is clear the Mega Rayquaza metagame was not that. Overall, it was an exception to the general rule of "don't ban Pokemon."
Alright, this is the part of your post that I have the most issues with. How was the Rayquaza meta any less “playable” than it is now? You said it yourself, “unplayable” is as loose a term as “unfun” is, and the metagame was most certainly playable with Rayquaza in it in a literal sense of the word. Was it even REMOTELY enjoyable or interesting to play? Absolutely not, but it WAS playable. How is that so different from the case here? I would argue that Mega Mence is VERY comparable to Rayquaza, it trades some weaknesses, some outright offensive power, priority, and the possibility to hold an item for reliable recovery, insane physical bulk, and a reliable way of removing status (albeit at the cost of coverage, like it matters when Double-Edge practically 2HKOs the entire tier unboosted.) I would dare say that the metagame right now is NOT “playable” (not literally, but in the same way the Ray meta was unplayable) for myself, and going off of a lot of the general opinions I’ve seen from both the userbase and in this thread, other people too- if this wasn’t the case then this thread and the Ubers Community thread probably wouldn’t exist, and you probably wouldn’t be so frequently bugged by people to do something about it.
Going to go off on a bit of a tangent here to all the people using the “get creative” argument- When the most consistent team in tournaments by a decent margin has been the Deo-S sample team, what’s the point of trying to innovate? It completely kills my motivation and interest to play this tier when I see basically the exact same 5-6 mons in literally every other game I play or watch. I can’t blame my opponents for not being creative, why would I? They want to win and it’s proven to be probably the most consistent build at a high level of play. Other archetypes are viable, sure, but for the most part they are pigeon-holed into running the same mons, which results in every team looking more or less the same if they want to be even remotely consistent. (Think Sableye + Lugia + etc for stall, PDon + Keys + Lati@s for Balance, etc..) Sure you can try to be “creative” but it’s simply not worth it because most of the time you will end up with a team that is very matchup-based and inconsistent and usually falls flat on its face vs the standard Deo-S HO team, let alone trying to contend with the myriad of lower ranked threats and other playstyles in the tier. I’m not going to pretend like I know very much about pre- sixth gen Ubers tiers, but I can say with complete certainty that in XY this issue wasn’t nearly as extreme as it is now, and sadly will only get worse with each new generation of Pokemon games.
That should cover everything that is in practice at this point. Now, if you want to ban Primal Groudon, you either have to:
A) Argue why it should be given a Mega Rayquaza-esque exception to the rule, OR
B) Argue why the current Ubers tiering paradigm needs to be changed to make such a ban permissible.
We can tell pretty quickly that A) isn't going to work:
- Primal Groudon does not make all teamstyles unviable. While it can be disputed whether or not all teamstyles are equally viable, effective balanced/stall teams do exist. Primal Groudon can also be used effectively on any teamstyle which makes this argument difficult to justify.
By itself, maybe not. But when a lot of games are simply being decided on which PDon and Mega Mence sets you or your opponent is running, how is this not a problem when this tier is included in major tournaments and supposed to be competitive? Also, Wreckdra made a good point; it’s almost impossible to consistently check the combination of PDon + Mence while still dealing with the other prominent and less prominent threats in the tier with 6 teamslots, due to the very small pool of mons that actually checks those main 2 (and how shaky most of these supposed “checks” actually are; I’ll be getting into that in the next segment though.)
Primal Groudon is not unstoppable and has checks and weaknesses. It has no counters (most Ubers don't) and it can beat most of its checks with coverage moves/status and the like (most Ubers can), but it does have multiple checks that can do other things outside of checking Primal Groudon. Lugia, Arceus-Ground, Arceus-Water, Lati@s, Mega Salamence, Rayquaza, Giratina-O, defensive Primal Kyogre, Yveltal, SDef Gliscor, regular Groudon, and Ho-Oh (if no Stone Edge) can all check Primal Groudon to varying degrees. This is not a short list and all of these Pokemon are viable in ORAS Ubers. Primal Groudon also lacks recovery of any kind and has an exploitable Ground weakness, which is very much relevant on a Pokemon commonly used as a blanket check to many threats as hazards/Toxic quickly wear it out. It's raw specially defensive stats (100/90), while good, aren't super high either, necessitating significant investment to properly check things such as Xerneas and Primal Kyogre.
OK half of these mons you listed are incredibly shaky at best, or just downright impractical as checks. I will break down some of these.
Lugia - Sure, this is one of the best checks to Groudon. Too bad it despises status, falls flat on its face with Stealth Rock on the field, and can’t do anything but toxic or phase out Groudon. Lugia only really fits on stall teams and requires full support from its team in order to check Groudon and Mence (Usually a magic bounce + secondary hazard remover.) Lugia could also “check” Mega Rayquaza with this much support so why is it acceptable for Groudon and Mence to stay while Rayquaza isn’t?
Arceus-Ground - Another fairly solid check. Too bad it hates switching into fire moves/burns and isn’t exactly the kind of mon you’d want to fit on every team, yet you’re kinda forced to a lot of the time because it’s the only defogger that can consistently beat PDon without risking paralysis.
…. and that’s where the list of “solid” checks ends. Let’s look into the rest of these checks just for arguments sake.
Arceus-Water - Can’t do anything but Toxic PDon or defog its rocks away, completely helpless vs swords dance, PP stalled by Rest sets (which is viable on stall, don’t know why people would think otherwise) and can quite easily lose to timely paras from the support set. Usually has to sack itself while risking full paras in order to try to keep rocks off the field, which is obviously less than ideal since you want this mon to be able to check things like Mega Mence and Ho-oh as well, 2 other mons who are ridiculously hard to deal with, Ho-oh obviously isn’t even on the same league as Mence and PDon though.
Rayquaza - Decent offensive check, can’t even remotely switch in, easily worn down, and has to severely limit its coverage by running a water move… This is also pretty obvious most of the time and the Groudon user will just switch out, and God forbid that Groudon gets a free turn to set up Rock Polish before you get to go to your Rayquaza. I still won’t deny that this is one of the better offensive checks though, albeit obviously overspecialized.
Giratina-O - Switching this in is incredibly risky due to how easily this mon is worn down. If the opponent’s PDon happens to have dragon coverage or goes for a status move that turn then good luck checking PDon or anything else later in the game. Really shitty and inconsistent check if I’m being frank.
Lati@s - See the above, you have to hope your opponent isn’t running a dragon move. Also has a very difficult time doing anything else in the game if it takes a para, while Latias can’t even KO offensive PDon from full, which is a problem if it sets up a SD/Rock Polish as you switch in expecting the rocks set. Really shitty and inconsistent check if I’m being frank.
SDef Gliscor - This is a joke right? Have fun switching into any fire move besides Lava Plume or accomplishing ANYTHING worthwhile against literally any other mon in the tier.
Regular Groudon - Pretty decent check if it runs a Lum berry, too bad the opportunity cost of not using PDon is gigantic and not worth it on most teambuilds. Also has no recovery, hates mixed sets, blah blah
Ho-oh - lol
Notice how most of these mons just flat out lose if your opponent happens to bring the right PDon set? And the thing is, ALL of these different PDon sets are viable and potentially worth using. I feel like this mon is a big reason most battles in ORAS Ubers are decided in the teambuilder. How many times have you seen someone bring 2-3 of these “checks” to PDon / Mence and still lose to them?
Banning Primal Groudon alone will more than likely not "fix" ORAS Ubers. I'm well aware of the fact that most people who want Primal Groudon gone also want many other things gone, such as Primal Kyogre, Mega Salamence, Geomancy, Shadow Tag, etc. All the blame thus isn't on Primal Groudon, though it is admittedly the largest contributor towards these ill feelings some people have towards ORAS Ubers. (Small aside: Geomancy and STAG are not on the table and probably never will be). The "slippery slope" of bans that would inevitably be requested is unacceptable under the current paradigm.
I agree, personally I think that if PDon were banned then Primal Ogre would lose its most splashable check and likely become almost unstoppable, especially with Pursuit support. I can’t say with certainty though ofc. I do think that a suspect or test ladder without Mega Mence and Primals would go a long way in improving the tier and satisfying the people who aren’t happy with the tier in its current state though… Not to mention I really don’t see any downsides to this, at best we end up with an objectively better tier and at worst, everyone shuts up about banning the Primals and Mence. The irony here is that saying there would be a “slippery slope” demand for other bans is in itself a slippery slope argument, since there is no way to know how it will turn out without actually doing it.
So, if you want Primal Groudon banned, you have to argue why we should change the tiering philosophy of Ubers to where such a ban would be allowed, and to what degree we should change it, if we should change it. Bear in mind chaos's initially proposed guidelines were not set in stone (though still useful), and that Ubers is not OU and we will not turn it into such. This discussion is much more a philosophical discussion than a Primal Groudon discussion, which I feel has been obfuscated by the OP being heavily weighted towards requesting a ban as well as the tone of subsequent discussion.
I will conclude by clarifying a few of PoMMan's general arguments that I don't feel are quite correct:
I don’t agree with all of PoMMan’s points myself but I find some of the things here kind of questionable and somewhat contradictory.
Mega Rayquaza's ban should be taken as an exception to the rule and was not, nor was ever intended to be, any precident for future bans.Banning Primal Groudon is a question of balance which is not at all like the Mega Rayquaza ban. I put this in bold text because many people seem to be confusing this point.
Rayquaza’s ban certainly seemed like a question of balance, I don’t see why that’s so hard to admit? It was incredibly imbalanced and made the tier absolute shit, and it was banned. There’s confusion here because no matter how you want to phrase it, it was obviously a ban for balance’s sake. It’s pretty obvious from the responses in this thread and the Ubers Community thread that most people would prefer a balanced tier to an imbalanced one.. What is the problem with this? Times have changed and you have to keep in mind that Gamefreak doesn’t even take us into consideration when making new games, let alone actually trying to balance these mons themselves. This is the benefit of being our own community disconnected from Nintendo/Gamefreak.
Pokemon shift in viability with the introduction of new Pokemon all the time, there is no law that says the same Pokemon have to be viable in every metagame. If Landorus-T and Poison Arceus suck in ORAS Ubers, that's irrelevant, we have no obligation to make them viable. Many Pokemon you listed have become less viable for other reasons than Primal Groudon or are still viable in certain respects (Palkia has to compete with Latis, Kyogre has a very usable Primal forme of its own, Lando-T can't touch Salamence or EKiller, the concept of certain Arceus formes being bad is nothing new, etc.)
No argument here.
Primal Groudon checking ONE out of a bunch of setup sweepers after a boost ONCE =/= different power bracket. This is no different than say, Swampert in ADV/DPP.
No argument here. I agree that this would be a very silly reason to ban a mon from any tier, let alone Ubers, if this was the only factor being taken into account.
I've said this before, but "unfun" is not a reason to ban a Pokemon. That's way too subjective. All tiering is subjective to a degree, but banning something just because it's "unfun" is unacceptable. What even is "unfun?"
I agree with your main point here, but the problem is, “unplayable” is just as subjective as “unfun”. Some people found the Rayquaza metagame completely playable and fun, yet it was still banned for being a horrendously broken piece of shit, regardless of how you want to phrase it. It seems like you just don’t want to admit that this was a ban for balance’s sake, which if that is the case, then this tier has already applied OU banning philosophy in some way, which contradicts with some of the points you have made earlier in your post. If not, then why not just unban Mega Rayquaza to keep the Ubers tiering philosophy and logic behind it consistent? Otherwise, what was the point of splitting Ubers and Anything Goes? At the very least it seems like we need to establish more definitive and objective criterion for banning a mon to Anything Goes.
For what it’s worth, this post isn’t meant to attack you or the way you’re deciding to run your tier in any way. I realize it’s impossible to please everyone. At the same time, it just seems wrong to ignore a problem and pretend nothing is wrong when it’s clear a lot of your playerbase thinks otherwise. I hope you’ll take some of this into consideration, thanks for reading. - Brokenwings