Alright so I know I'm probably going to get a ton of hate from this because it's a pretty controversial topic but please bear with me. Stuff like this is usually taboo to talk about but I know plenty of people that share the same feelings as me and I think this needs to at least be put out there.

I'm mostly speaking for the OU tier, because I'm not entirely sure if other tiers are having the same issues that we are currently having, but I've been following the way UU has been going about suspect testing/banning their Pokemon and I REALLY think that it's much more effective at creating a more balanced meta in a short amount of time than the current system OU currently has. The biggest issue I've been having with the current system is that it takes way too long for the metagame to reach a state of balance, sometimes not even at all before a new generation or game is released. I think it speaks volume that lots of people consider ORAS OU to be a pretty stale, overall unbalanced metagame, some people even questioning if banning Mega Sableye was really worth it in the end. I don't think I'm alone in saying that there are a few other Pokemon that people thought needed to be looked at more closely, but nothing was really done about it mostly because nothing really stood out as game breaking or significantly overpowered.


And that's another thing that bothers me, the community seems to have a very anti-ban mindset in general. Anytime we suspect something or bring anything up that might not be particularly over the top but is definitely worth looking into, people will go absolutely insane and it completely destroys any form of good discussion in suspect threads because half the time it's just ignorant people shitposting. I think a perfect example of this is the current Dugtrio suspect, which has had a pretty large disapproval from a decent chunk of the community that don't really follow tournaments. Oftentimes I think we are timid to suspect or even bring anything up because we are worried about some kind of backlash, and I don't think we should be continually catering this mindset, because it halts any sort of healthy meta progression. We should be allowed to suspect Pokemon that may not be outright broken just to see if it has a positive impact on the meta. The OU council almost feels useless sometimes, because their job is pretty small in the grand scheme of things, and I don't think it should be like that. Outside of bringing up mons to suspect and quick banning new Pokemon, almost 100% of tiering is done by the community. Personally, I don't think this is the best way to go about doing things, which is why I REALLY like the Kokoloko method, because it's all about a bigger council with full control of what Pokemon are removed from the metagame, and it's up to the community to decide if something is truly worth staying during retests. The biggest obstacle in my opinion, is actually getting something banned, and the Koko method helps remedy this by basically putting the foot down, which honestly is something I think needs to be done more often. The community still gets their say during retests so we don't have to worry about people not getting TC or feeling like they have no say in anything, but at the end of the day, the whole purpose of the OU council is to run the tier, and with the current system, they feel more like spokespersons than leaders. Let the people complain about us being elitists, the people on the OU council have been put there for a reason.

I'm not 100% certain if the Koko method is the best solution, but I seriously just can't stand how it seems like it takes MONTHS for something to be addressed, and possibly even longer if there are multiple issues at once. Obviously suspecting more than one Pokemon at once is not the best answer, because the metagame will become vastly different by removing more than one Pokemon from it and then trying to figure out whether or not one is only broken with the other in it or vice versa (good example of this is Gene, Mega Luc, and Deo-S suspect in XY which resulted in Deo-S staying and that wouldn't have happened if it were just Deo by itself considering how bad it was afterwards). That's why I would prefer to remove the problem children, and test them individually in a controlled meta, so that entirely removes the "broken mons keeping other broken mons in check" factor. OU definitely has multiple Pokemon at the moment that need to be looked at, and if this Duggy suspect ends up in a NO BAN, it's basically going to be a wasted 4 weeks that could have been used to ban Mega Metagross, and probably another few weeks before something else is going to be suspected, plus ANOTHER couple of weeks before that suspect ends, you're looking at about 2 months of work for one ban. I honestly don't know what the outcome will be for the current suspect, but again, it seems like everything moves in slow motion. This is even further compounded by the fact that new megas are slowly being potentially released monthly, and that only adds onto more and more Pokemon that may need to be suspected. Once the meta reaches a balanced state we can go back to suspect testing Pokemon using the current method, but when a new gen/game comes out and a multitude of threats are released, I think a form of Koko suspecting should be implemented to reach a state of balance before resorting back to the old system.

Sorry for the essay, but this has been on my mind for a long time, and I'd just like to get everything off my chest. Thanks for reading.