BW Excadrill

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lol this is awkward
(if you'd like another option included in the second vote feel free to post your suggestion here, even if you're not one of the people voting)
very well
If action really needs to be taken, please consider adding the following option:

Ban Swift Swim, Chlorophyll, Sand Rush + any weather inducing abilities

This effectively restricts the problem to Weatherless Sand Rush Excadrill, removes Rain Sand Rush which is the biggest problem emerged from the thread (making the weather war rain versus sand more fair), but at the same time you will still be able to run things like Swift Swim Kingdra here and then in wless, provided you don't cheat with it in weather wars
It also simplifies the current tiering phrasing to some extent, and has the added benefit of being the most diversity-preserving option. That said I think a complex ban of Sand Rush Excadrill would be the best option at this point because A. bw appreciates rapid spin excadrill B. freeing stoutland would be a bit too much C. the less we shake up an old metagame the better

I'll refrain from any further comments but for God's sake do not free full power Sun squads, they're 100 times worse than Rain Rush Excadrill and yes, they'll definitely ruin your tournaments if that's all that matters
 
Calling this vote off for now. There has been many issues and pretty much none of them have been addressed so far.

The plan was getting a BW centric council fully done today to sort this out without forcing me to step in, but extraordinary circumstances have delayed that for a little bit and I don't want to waste any more time. Not a fan of "putting my foot down", but it has to be done. I will not be making the final call here, I'm just putting an end to this flawed vote. Expect a council and their decision regarding this vote really soon.
 

Finchinator

-OUTL
is a Tournament Directoris a Top Social Media Contributoris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past WCoP Championis the defending OU Circuit Championis a Two-Time Former Old Generation Tournament Circuit Champion
OU Leader
Hello everyone, welcome to the new and improved™ Black and White Two Overused vote on the subject of Excadrill. Before I go into details on the vote itself, I would like to introduce a new Black and White Council that will be in charge of overseeing future tiering decisions involving the tier.

As of right now, the Black and White Council consists of BKC, M Dragon, Eo Ut Mortus, and myself. As a group, we will be in charge of deciding what needs to be done in order to have the most competitive BW2 OU metagame in the future, starting with this vote itself. While we will refrain from specifically defining our power as a group for the time being, expect an update on this, if we need to define it, in the near future. Councils for all of the other old generations shall form as well, but our formation as a BW Council has was done quickly due to the topic of Excadrill being pressing and the former vote proving to be an insufficient solution.

-----

Now that this matter has been introduced to the public, let's discuss the Excadrill vote that will be taking place immediately in order to get things sorted well before the upcoming SPL. The vote will have three potential options, two of which offer a "solution" and the other being the status quo. The options will the following:
  1. Ban Excadrill
  2. Ban Sand Rush, Swift Swim, and Chlorophyll
  3. Do nothing
We are removing the option that involves unbanning Chlorophyll + Drought being allowed again as that is a separate issue from this one. In addition, we will still consider discussing the prospect of changing the complexity of the bans involving Chlorophyll + Drought and Swift Swim + Drizzle if the outcome of this vote is not option 2, but these topics are both discussions that should not overlap with this one.

The voting will be done with a proper run-off vote. There will only be one round of voting as opposed to the previously discussed two rounds and the round will involve ranking all of the options from most ideal to least. This means that voters will list the option that they deem to be ideal first, the option they view the second best the second, and the option they view to be the worst the last within their vote. An example vote can be seen below:
Sample Vote said:
2. Ban Sand Rush, Swift Swim, and Chlorophyll
1. Ban Excadrill
3. Ban nothing
We established a new, but similar set of criteria to determine who will be allowed to vote. The following will be the criteria that decide who will be allowed to participate in the vote:
  • The player has reached the Semi-Final of the Smogon Classic BW Cup 3;
  • The player was one of the people who collected the most amount of BW Points in Smogon Tour 23 and 24 (Top 3 amount);
  • The player played BW in the 8th SPL, and has at least played 5 games played;
  • The player played BW in the 12th WCoP, and has at least played 3 BW Games in it (50%+ winrate).
The criteria is being changed predominantly because we feel that Excadrill's place in the metagame has developed and solidified over the course of the past year. While Excadrill was a part of the metagame dating back to the time of BW Cup 2, Smogon Tour seasons 21 and 22 SPL 7, and WCOP 11, it is safe to say that people had not fully recognized how potent it could be, how to properly take advantage of what it presented teams with, and how to fully adapt to its presence in the tier in general. Focusing on the past year of tournament play will assure that the field is full of informed, up-to-date voters that will help lead to the best decision made for the future of the metagame. In addition, we made the SPL requirement a bit more lax in order to essentially include all players who started a majority of the weeks in the tier as we feel SPL is the highest level of BW play on Smogon.

We do understand that there are people who were allowed to vote last time around and are now excluded (thirteen to be exact). Because of this, we will be allowing special applications open only to those thirteen voters that are now excluded. The special application essentially must include a list of your tournament credentials in the BW tier over the past year, proving that you are familiar with the tier as a player to the necessary extent to vote (this should just be a formal list, nothing more). An example will be provided below and please send your Special Application via PM to BKC, M Dragon, Eo Ut Mortus, and myself.

Example Special Application said:
Hello. I qualified to vote through the old criteria and here is my what I have done in BW as a player over the past year:
WCOP: 1-2
Smogon Tour 23: 19 Points
BW Cup: Round 4
Smogon Superstars: 5-0
Without further ado, here are the voters that qualify under the current criteria:
Jayde (SPL 8, WCOP 12)
SoulWind (SPL 8, BW Cup 3, ST 23)
dice (SPL 8, BW Cup 3)
McMeghan (SPL 8)
LuckOverSkill (SPL 8)
Eo Ut Mortus (SPL 8, BW Council)
Tokyo Tom (SPL 8, WCOP 12)
Finchinator (SPL 8, WCOP 12, BW Council)
Ciele (SPL 8)
Shoka (SPL 8)
Jirachee (SPL 8)
Funkasaurus (WCOP 12)
ZoroDark (WCOP 12)
6A9 Ace Matador (WCOP 12)
Asuya (WCOP 12)
Posho (WCOP 12, BW Cup 3, ST 24)
Get this Money (BW Cup 3)
sugarhigh (SPL 8, BW Cup 3)
Fakes (BW Cup 3)
FLCL (ST 24)
blunder (ST 23, ST 24)
M Dragon (Council)
BKC (Council)


Here are users that are allowed to submit a Special Application to vote:


You have to PM me your vote. I have already made my own vote and posted it in a Cryptobin in the Council PM that only I know the password to, so my vote will not be impacted by the incoming votes and will also not be known my anyone else. You may NOT edit your vote once it is sent. To make sure this won't happen, I will immediately reply to the PM you sent with your own vote.

The deadline to vote is 11:59 PM GMT-5, Sunday the 3rd, December.
 
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Finchinator

-OUTL
is a Tournament Directoris a Top Social Media Contributoris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past WCoP Championis the defending OU Circuit Championis a Two-Time Former Old Generation Tournament Circuit Champion
OU Leader
Tagging voters

Jayde (SPL 8, WCOP 12)
SoulWind (SPL 8, BW Cup 3, ST 23)
dice (SPL 8, BW Cup 3)
McMeghan (SPL 8)
LuckOverSkill (SPL 8)
Eo Ut Mortus (SPL 8, BW Council)
Tokyo Tom (SPL 8, WCOP 12)
Finchinator (SPL 8, WCOP 12, BW Council)
Ciele (SPL 8)
Shoka (SPL 8)
Jirachee (SPL 8)
Funkasaurus (WCOP 12)
ZoroDark (WCOP 12)
6A9 Ace Matador (WCOP 12)
Asuya (WCOP 12)
Posho (WCOP 12, BW Cup 3, ST 24)
Get this Money (BW Cup 3)
sugarhigh (SPL 8, BW Cup 3)
Fakes (BW Cup 3)
FLCL (ST 24)
blunder (ST 23, ST 24)
M Dragon (Council)
BKC (Council)

tagging potential special applicants

Jimmy Turtwig
Malekith
Evuelf
boudouche
TDK
giara
Ace-11
reyscarface
Smurf.
Toxzn
Veni Vidi Vici
Leftiez
Pearl
 
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Finchinator

-OUTL
is a Tournament Directoris a Top Social Media Contributoris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past WCoP Championis the defending OU Circuit Championis a Two-Time Former Old Generation Tournament Circuit Champion
OU Leader
Jesús - Today at 11:38 AM
it didn't tag me

Low turn-out so far and apparently my tag yesterday didn't work, so:
Jayde (SPL 8, WCOP 12)
SoulWind (SPL 8, BW Cup 3, ST 23)
dice (SPL 8, BW Cup 3)
McMeghan (SPL 8)
LuckOverSkill (SPL 8)
Eo Ut Mortus (SPL 8, BW Council)
Tokyo Tom (SPL 8, WCOP 12)
Finchinator (SPL 8, WCOP 12, BW Council)
Ciele (SPL 8)
Shoka (SPL 8)
Jirachee (SPL 8)
Funkasaurus (WCOP 12)
ZoroDark (WCOP 12)
6A9 Ace Matador (WCOP 12)
Asuya (WCOP 12)
Posho (WCOP 12, BW Cup 3, ST 24)
Get this Money (BW Cup 3)
sugarhigh (SPL 8, BW Cup 3)
Fakes (BW Cup 3)
FLCL (ST 24)
blunder (ST 23, ST 24)
M Dragon (Council)
BKC (Council)
255, 255, 0.2)
 

Finchinator

-OUTL
is a Tournament Directoris a Top Social Media Contributoris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past WCoP Championis the defending OU Circuit Championis a Two-Time Former Old Generation Tournament Circuit Champion
OU Leader
As for the outlook of the Council, I cannot say I have much of a comment on that. I was told these three members are part of the council (BKC and M Dragon had already been contacted), I was offered a spot myself if I wanted to be (and I wanted to join, so I did), and we all happened to be in favor of doing something (for very different reasons, to be fair). However, that does not mean that we acted with the intent to sway the vote in the favor of doing something, let alone with bias. I understand why you think that because you just graced the surface of the post and see the distribution of the voters, which you posted, who are now left out. With this said, I understand why one would assume the conclusion you did and I implore you to take a more in-depth look in to the situation, so I will present you with one that makes it fairly easy to understand.

What we did with regards to the voter list was predominantly defined by the fact that Excadrill's presence in the current metagame and that of the past year is much more clear than it was for the year prior. Excadrill was still relatively "new" to the tier throughout the 2016 circuit of tournaments. You have to keep in mind that Pokemon developing in an old, less played metagame such as BW takes much longer than it does in a modern generation metagame, so this should be no surprise whatsoever. People were not sure how to use it the most effectively, how to properly integrate it into teams, and how to play against it. It should be no surprise that it was not much of a factor back then and it should be no surprise that the viability and usage of Excadrill would change somewhat drastically as it found its place in the tier in the eyes of the playerbase. Moreover: Why would we use the people who played a metagame vastly different from the current one when the issue originated and stems from the current metagame state? That does not add up to me at all. I am aware that the system has been in place for a few years that is similar to the one of the first vote, including voters that have played tournaments in the tier for a couple years back, but this has always been a flawed system for old genertions and I think that setting a precedent to change this system to be more practical was something that needed to be done alongside starting councils -- when else would we do it, why would we continue to employ a suboptimal system, why would we not elect to better the quality of our vote when we could do so in a logical fashion, etc. This was the time to do it and this was the way to do it to fit the nature of the situation, with specific regard to the metagame's development. I believe doing this is all entirely within our grasp as a council member and I feel this applies to any other council in a similar situation, so I strongly urge other potential future votes to also improve the criteria they utilize instead of potentially compromising the quality of their votes.

Regardless of all of this, we did agree that there is no true fashion to prove that there is absolutely no bias, especially seeing as the first part of the first vote already happened the way it did. Therefore, we figured it would only be fair to, for this time and this time only, open up special applications for those who missed out on the vote this time around due to the change in criteria. If anything, you should be thankful that we included this in order to at least give those users a chance to vote if they are truly qualified -- odds are, if they would not qualify via a special application, then I'd think they probably did not play the tier a sufficient amount in tournaments to truly qualify as an informed voter regardless. As far as I am concerned, this is a pretty clear solution and entirely fair offering to those who got in under the previously poor criteria that we changed. And to end this all, if you honestly wanted us to keep the same list of voters and maintain this suboptimal system and criteria going in to the future, then I think that you should reassess your values and prioritize quality over personal opinion.
 

Finchinator

-OUTL
is a Tournament Directoris a Top Social Media Contributoris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past WCoP Championis the defending OU Circuit Championis a Two-Time Former Old Generation Tournament Circuit Champion
OU Leader
We would like to announce that Jirachee has been added to the BW2 OU Council! We look forward to working with him on future matters!

---

The deadline has post and the vote is in.

213 - finchinator
213 - posho
213 - bkc
123 - mdragon
321 - mcmeghan
312 - tokyo tom
123 - get this money
231 - jirachee
321 - flcl
213 - jimmy turtwig
213 - ciele
321 - reyscarface
312 - sugarhigh
312 - blunder
132 - funkasaurus
123 - luckoverskill
132 - asuya
3 - 6a9 ace matador
132 - eo ut mortus
321 - dice

1 = ban exca
2 = ban abilities
3 = do nothing

1st place tally
1 tally - 6
2 tally - 6
3 tally - 8

2nd place tally
1 tally - 8
2 tally - 7
3 tally - 4

3rd place tally
1 tally - 5
2 tally - 6
3 tally - 8

--

Usually in a runoff vote, the option with the least first place votes is eliminated. However, as you can see, option 1 and 2 are tied. The natural tiebreak method would be taking the third option's (do nothing) second vote tallies to break the tie, which favors banning the abilities (option 2) 4-3 (Ace Matador did not vote properly and never responded after being asked to, which is why only 7 of 8 have a second place vote). The ban abilities option (option 2) won the tiebreak and advanced to the second round of the runoff vote, meaning that all of the second place votes for the ban Excadrill option (option 1) would be added up to decide the outcome of the overall vote. Of those 6 votes, there were three in favor of banning the abilities (option 2) and three in favor of doing nothing (option 3), meaning that when added up to the other first place votes, doing nothing wins 11-9. Five people either did not vote at all or did not vote on time, meaning we cannot count them.

Reyscarface and Jimmy Turtwig both were accepted as Special Applicants -- their applications are hyperlinked!


There will be no changes to the BW2 OU metagame. Thanks to everyone for taking part in the vote!
 
AM's vote is null because he didn't submit his vote properly. This doesn't change the outcome of the tiebreaker or the vote itself, as the "ban nothing" option wins regardless, it only affects his TC vote count.
 
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