Tiering Explained

[WaterWizard]

This is a brief explanation of how Tiers come about, in order to eventually address the issue of moving UU pokemon to BL.

First, the OU.

If a pokemon has a consistent use/strength in battle, it will be used often. These uses/strengths include possessing a sleep/paralysis move, having high stats and/or good typing, having a high CH move, having a recovery move, etc. If a pokemon has one of these things (or a combination), and can do its job better than other similar pokemon (e.g. Golem does better than Onix at the same things), players will include them in their teams. That is how the OU is created.

These pokemon constitute "standard" play as they are deemed to be the best of the generation's pokemon.

When a pokemon in OU is found to be TOO good (by having too great of a combination of the above qualities), it is considered Uber. In RBY, we have determined that there are two Ubers to OU. They centralize gameplay, and are thus put in the Uber category.

Now, ALL the leftovers are UU.

These remaining pokemon now have their own exclusive battle forum. Naturally, there are tons of pokemon in this group, and some will rise to the top of this hedged-off group. These pokemon dominate UU play so much that the weaker pokemon in this group don't stand a chance. The dominant pokemon are considered the Ubers of the UU, and are thus excluded from UU play. They are put in another group called "BL," aka "the UU Ubers."

The remaining UU pokemon form a balanced metagame, though some pokes are never used as they are either weaker copies of better pokemon in the UU, or just plain useless. These pokemon can be tossed in the NU category if desired.

Now,

Users of Smogon are probably familiar with Cantab's signature phrase "Uber Status Is Determined By Power in OU, Not [Power] in Ubers!" This means that a pokemon should not be moved to the Uber bracket simply because they can be useful in that bracket. They are only moved if they centralize their own bracket (e.g. Blissey is useful/used in DPP Ubers, but she's still allowed in OU).

This can be applied to the UU bracket as well. A pokemon should not be moved to BL simply because they can be useful there. They should be moved only if they completely dominate/centralize UU play. Thus, pokemon like Porygon or Ninetales, though perhaps useful in BL, should not be moved to BL.

Naturally, a pokemon from a lower bracket is allowed to be used in a higher bracket, but they shouldn't be listed in that bracket unless they totally dominate the lower bracket.


Hopefully this helps clear up the idea of moving pokemon based on their viability in UU Uber (BL) when they don't even (over) dominate UU.

[t3h Icy]

Great post.

The thing is that the way tiers are looked at could be debatable. I think Ninetales is a good example. In OU, Ninetales can hold her own against Physical Normals, Jynx, Exeggutor and Articuno, but in UU, she's only average. Would her abilities in OU maker her BL or her average-ness in UU make her UU?

I would suppose that she would be UU, because even if she was in the BL tier, she would rarely get played in BL//UU only, and Ninetales certainly cannot hold her own enough to be considered OU. I suppose that would make her UU overall.

So mostly, the question of tiering is do we put Pokemon in tiers based on how effective they are against OUs in a whole, or how effective they are in their own levels?

I'd say the latter personally, so disregard some of my posts about my opinions in the Tier Update thread.

[Crystal_]

Tiers are already decided (smogon preferably). I dont think that change the tiers is a good idea, or everyone will play with his own tiers.

[garrinred]

The most current definition of tiers is based on usage in the OU("standard") metagame. If a pokemon is used a LOT, it is in OU. If a pokemon is NOT, it is in UU. If a pokemon overcentralizes the OU metagame, that's an Uber.

The UU metagame, once created, works the same way. Pokemon that are used a lot stay in UU. Pokemon that are not fall to NU, if it exists. Pokemon that overcentralize the UU metagame are bumped to the BL tier.

It's supposed to be all usage, no real theory. It's assumed that if pokemon are good, they will be used lots, and this will create the tiers.

[Crystal_]

However, unlike the Uber tier, BL is not played as a tier by itself. When you find Pokemon tournaments, they are OU, UU, NU or Uber. BL is usually (x)BL-allowed UU, when x is the number of BL Pokemon allowed. In my opinion BL is like a part of UU, while Uber isn't juat a part of OU. It's like alowing for example Wrap or Trades in UU; you allow BLs in UU.
I'm not saying that I don't like BL but I think that it isn't comparable to Uber.