>before
NU, UU, OU, Ubers
>now
PU, NU, RU, BL2, UU, BL, OU, Ubers, Anything Goes
Does Smogon just like making up new tiers? Why do we need so many?
Well there are bl3 and 4 too
>>25821510
BL, BL2, etc. aren't tiers, they're banlists for the tiers below (so a BL Pokemon is pretty much an OU Pokemon for all intents and purposes).
And there's a lot more Pokemon than before so they've added more tiers accordingly. Gen 1 and 2 had four tiers (Ubers, OU, UU, Little Cup), Gen 3 and 4 added NU, Gen 5 added RU and Gen 6 added PU. Anything Goes is another special case, it only exists because Mega-Fug is so powerful.
>>25821510
BL's aren't tiers, they are in between them.
And for the record, they have always existed.
I'm not a smogonfag but from the outside it seems obvious.
Tiers are attempts to create semi-balanced games. Ideally most pokemon within a tier are usable. As more pokemon are added tiers become bloated. Half the tier are the objectively best pokemon to use and the other half are never used. So you split the tier and create two fairly balanced meta games.
All the BL should be removed.
What's the fucking point of the BL tiers? A BL Pokemon is one that can be used in OU but not UU, so what makes it different from an OU mon?
>>25821620
>>25821647
as a man in an earlier explained, bl are not tiers. they are banlists for tiers.
a pokemon in bl isn't technically used enough to be in a tier, but also can't be used in a lower tier.
if that triggers your autism, just pretend bl is ou, bl2 is uu, etc.
>>25821647
To put it in OU would break smogons signature tier separation, in that they are by usage aside from ubers. Its still a part of UU but its too good for the other things of the tier, so it gets banned
>>25821620
The tiers are based on usage and most of the bans make sense so they cant just be removed
>>25821698
But why do they have banlists for tiers in the first place? They serve no purpse. If a Pokemon is too good good for UU, move it to OU.
>>25821784
you can use bl pokemon in higher tiers. bl pokemon are usable in ou, bl2 pokemon are usable in uu, etc.
>>25821784
What if a pokemon is too good for UU but too bad for OU?
>>25821784
see >>25821708
tiers are determined by usage
>>25821784
Because the tiers are based on usage, something thats not used a lot (even if it was powerful) cant be on ou
>>25821804
Then it rests in banlist and no one uses it
>>25821784
Pokemon tiers are based on usage rather than deeming something to be too strong for the lower tier. I believe a Pokemon needs 3.41% usage to be considered in a particular tier. That's the official definition of a Smogon tier. Even if you use these usage statistics to tier Pokemon, there are some Pokemon in each tier that completely dominate their tier. For instance, a BL Pokemon doesn't have enough usage to be considered OU, but it overcentralises the UU metagame. Because they don't want to mess with the current definition of tiers (being based on usage and usage alone), they created these BL tiers.
>>25821819
That's why I wish they removed BL
>>25821849
How about altering that 3.41 figure to make room?
>>25821647
The U in each tier's name stands for used.
They're too good for the tier they're banned from, but not used enough to be in the tier above.
>>25821784
Being too good for one tier doesn't mean it's used enough to be in the higher tier.
>>25821863
But then they would just rest in a higher tier and never get used instead.
>>25821872
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/smogon-usage-based-tier-update-february-2015-see-post-222-for-april-quick-rises-drops.3528836/
>The cutoff for each tier is the point at which you're more than 50% likely to encounter that Pokemon at least once in a given day of playing, if you play 20 battles a day. For those that don't feel like doing the math themselves, that number is approximately 3.41%. So that means if a Pokemon is used on 4% of OU teams, it's considered OU and is banned from UU, RU and NU.
>>25821872
Take Mega-Pidgeot as an example. It has very low usage in OU (barely getting 1% usage) because it's completely outclassed Tornadus-T. But it completely dominates everything in UU. Therefore they moved it to BL.
>>25821510
Tier below PU when? They need to keep making tiers until my bro is finally viable in one of them.
