With the recent ban on Ingrain Smeargle in ADV Ubers there has been a controversial discussion regarding the ban itself and the way it was handled among the Ubers community. Namely, the way that the ADV Council bypassed any and all input from both the Ubers community, and also that of my own as the tier leader - in other words pretty much nobody invested in the tier had any idea this was coming. After the ban was posted, I talked with a few of the prominent ADV Ubers players and the majority opinion I got back was more of a shrug. Most agreed that the ban is beneficial to ADV Ubers, but there was certainly opposition in that it didn't need to be banned at all, and most importantly, action in an Ubers generation that is as old as ADV goes against many grains and doing it for such a thing does more harm than good. In this case, the result of the decision is mostly minor. Chain passing recieved a large nerf, but this strategy was regarded by some to be unreliable and/or bad against good teams in the first place. However, there is an argument that there was a lack of reasoning or justification for the ADV council to apply this to Ubers in the exact same way it was done in ADV OU. They are very different tiers and a copy/paste of OU reasoning isn't the best fit.
What I would like to see clarification on is:
- Why this ban was applied to ADV Ubers, especially without input from relevant parties
- What powers do the Old Gen Councils have over lower tiers, or in general?
This decision may have set a dangerous precedent that could see problems if not ironed out properly. If the ADV Council can ban something from ADV Ubers without asking anyone in Ubers, what stops the DPP council from doing the same to DPP Ubers, or DPP UU, or any other old gen lower tier? These metagames are all enjoyed by their playerbases and the actions of a council predominantly based around OU affecting their metagames can lead to some serious backlash. In fact, I was under the impression that these councils could only impact old gen OU tiers, not all tiers in that generation, and I doubt I'm the only one that felt that way. The result of the ADV Ubers decision may be minor and I'm fairly confident it was a one time thing in the context of Ubers, but I feel this is certainly a discussion worth having as this can affect many of our tiers in the future, moreso when gen 6 and 7 become "old" and there are more controversial things that someone in a future SM council may desire to change, ban or unban. Having a clear idea of the powers these councils have in general is overall beneficial going forward if this idea is to stick.
What I would like to see clarification on is:
- Why this ban was applied to ADV Ubers, especially without input from relevant parties
- What powers do the Old Gen Councils have over lower tiers, or in general?
This decision may have set a dangerous precedent that could see problems if not ironed out properly. If the ADV Council can ban something from ADV Ubers without asking anyone in Ubers, what stops the DPP council from doing the same to DPP Ubers, or DPP UU, or any other old gen lower tier? These metagames are all enjoyed by their playerbases and the actions of a council predominantly based around OU affecting their metagames can lead to some serious backlash. In fact, I was under the impression that these councils could only impact old gen OU tiers, not all tiers in that generation, and I doubt I'm the only one that felt that way. The result of the ADV Ubers decision may be minor and I'm fairly confident it was a one time thing in the context of Ubers, but I feel this is certainly a discussion worth having as this can affect many of our tiers in the future, moreso when gen 6 and 7 become "old" and there are more controversial things that someone in a future SM council may desire to change, ban or unban. Having a clear idea of the powers these councils have in general is overall beneficial going forward if this idea is to stick.