ZU Tiering and Metagame History

Almost entirely based of UU and PU tiering threads, credits to Hikari and Galbia respectively

Summary
[Spoiler] At the beginning of ZU, everything that is potentially broken is banned by a council. Then, banned elements are reintroduced to the tier one at a time, and the ZU council votes on whether each suspect should be kept in ZU or remain BL5. [/Spoiler]

ZU Tiering Method: Kokoloko Method

As with every tier, tiering begins with the beta stage. At the very beginning of ZU Beta, the most blatantly overpowered elements of ZU are quickbanned by the tier leaders.

Soon after, the tier leaders will handpick the ZU council. Council members are chosen based on activity and metagame knowledge. Alongside the tier leaders, the council members will nominate elements of the metagame they feel are banworthy. This will occur on a weekly basis; at the beginning of the week broken elements will he nominated and at the end of the week they will be voted on. A nomination that receives a simple majority of "ban" votes will be removed from the ZU tier. This process will be repeatedly until ZU is out of beta, and by this time the metagame should have its most broken elements removed. Soon after, the tier leaders will begin to reintroduce certain banned elements to the tier. Discussion will be open to the public through a suspect thread and a rotating council will be formed (two open seats, effectively forming a nine person council). For an element to be reintroduced into the tier, a supermajority of "unban" votes is required. Finally, after each major tier shift the council will be able to vote on whether to quickban anything that dropped from PU.

Method's Purpose:

The purpose of this tiering method is to create a healthy and balanced metagame in the shortest possible timeframe. Once a stable metagame is achieved, the council will introduce potentially broken elements individually into the tier to see if they are truly broken or not. A council-only system reduces the amount of time needed to get through suspects. Moreover, being an unofficial tier with a small player base, we most likely will not have the activity needed for a suspect ladder.

ZU Council:

For the beta stages of ZU, a seven-person council consisting of the tier leaders and the trusted members of the community they have chosen. High activity, strong metagame knowledge, and good playing ability are required to be on council.

After ZU exits beta, its council will consist of nine members: seven seats taken up by tier leaders and their most trusted contributors, and two additional rotating seats are filled by members of the community*. These rotating council members are selected by the tier leaders based upon high activity, contributions to recent suspect tests discussions, and good playing ability. Of course, rotating council members may vary from one suspect tests  to another. If you wish to take up an open seat contact one of the tier leaders and we'll tell you how you're progressing or what you should do to qualify. All council voters must participate in the discussion for the suspect tests they vote in.

*These figures may change depending on the size of our player base, but at the moment they stand as they are (7 permanent, 2 rotating).