To be frank, I doubt it would matter any. I don't get a "stop using Snorlax and Sceptile" vibe from them dropping to a second tier simply because there's one more tier. After all, and I think it was you who said it (and if it wasn't you my apologies), people already go for the best of the best anyway, and even Pokés like Snorlax and Sceptile dropped in use already. The difference is that assuming for a moment that we end up with metagames for every tier, more Pokémon will be featured overall. What I mean is, instead of rotting in oblivion for being at the bottom rung of a tier that has too much of a span in terms of power, Pokémon like these two will get to thrive in a "tier 2" metagame. Meanwhile, those who would end up at the bottom of the first tier out of five would still get acceptable screentime.

But hey, if someone tosses aside Snorlax and Sceptile as useless because they're one tier lower, that's their own loss. After all, it's stupid to think they're meant to be played in the same way as, say, Blissey and Tangrowth. Fact of the matter is, the OU list as we know it doesn't cover all the niches, and it will cover even less as we increase the number of tiers. And for all we know, that tightening could actually get people to do the exact reverse and pay MORE attention to the second tier, which could end up jacking up the use of Pokémon that are second-tier no matter the amount, such as Ambipom or Vaporeon.

Of course, that's only supposition that assumes that one, we make our own tier list and two, it makes it big. And I'm convinced that we should at least try it, because Smogon's shift towards usage makes the power niche wide open, effectively making the two lists more complementary and less concurrential.

Speaking of which, I've thought of which method we should use if we ever go forward with that while at work, and I think the ballot method followed by a debate on closer calls would work best. Everyone would get a say in it regardless of when they're available or not, and at the same time we keep it a coordinated, collective effort (in both senses of the word "effort") instead of an individualistic, uncertain cluster****. So I guess all we'd need is more approbation by the community here before going forward.

I have been in favor for having a metagame per tier since D/P was announced to have 493 pokemon. There's plenty to have a fleshed out "middle/BL" tier between "OU" and "UU" now, though, to make things easier for us, we should probably just treat it as a faux ubers tier, as balancing OU and UU is hard enough without having to balance a 3rd tier(ubers being broken as hell in a good way and NU being everything that phails so immensely as to not have a reason to exist).

As for how to rank tiers...that's a good question. I'm fairly certain Smogon plans to use its Competitor as its sampling base in the future, and as they are a highly-competitive community, one would figure going by usage would be a fairly simple way to do things. I think it is to our benefit to do things a little differently...

The Competitor bit is true... but as I mentioned in my year-end recap, how will it fare versus Shoddy? It can do absolutely anything - crushing it completely, coexisting with it, or folding into oblivion. It's going to be interesting how it turns out, as the inevitable feud might have an effect on Smogon's tiering all on its own. Can you see Jolteon OU based on Shoddy, and UU based on Competitor? Or something like that.

The difference is that assuming for a moment that we end up with metagames for every tier, more Pokémon will be featured overall. What I mean is, instead of rotting in oblivion for being at the bottom rung of a tier that has too much of a span in terms of power, Pokémon like these two will get to thrive in a "tier 2" metagame.

The more I think of this, the more I'm skeptical of how much good an additional tier or two would do. One of the reasons why ubers and UU aren't so popular is because OU is what 90% of the players play. How many people are going to want to learn multiple metagames? Especially when a number of them may have trouble mastering one?

Though, if the new tiering system indeed takes off, we might see more of an overlap between the metagames. Somebody might use Sceptile with great success in a lower tier and be willing/tempted to use it in a higher tier.

Regardless, I think that if the new tiering system is to have success, it needs to be put together relatively quickly. Despite offering something (slightly) different from the Smogon tiers, I don't know how easily it will be to attract players who have already accepted and embraced the Smogon tiers.

EDIT: I'm hating this BBS code. Bad Bull Shit, m i rite?

EDIT2: Personally, I believe Shoddy will go the way of RSBot if Competitor lives up to the hype.

While it is true that OU is what most of the people play, it goes both ways. If OU is really all there is, we shouldn't be concerned at all by tiering that doesn't involve the line between ubers and OU, no matter whether it uses power or usage, no matter whether there are four or five tiers. But that's not the case, there's actually a strong reaction from people when it comes to non-uber tiering. That tells me the exercise may not be completely futile.

As for the duration... well, I was thinking that if we go with the ballot method, we should allow a period of 10 or so days to give everyone a chance to give their opinion. So if we were to start it, say, next weekend (so as to give us a few days until then to get a consensus on the logistics), the following debate (and thus the final tier list) would be done by the end of the month. Would that be quick enough?

Even if Competitor doesn't live up to the hype, there's still the chance most of Smogon's members will automatically go to Competitor anyway, which might cause a lot of other people to migrate to it to follow them.

Forgive me for not having heard the hype, but what is the hype about competitor?

Apparently, it cures AIDS and cancer, and makes money grow on trees. j/k

So after the response I've had, I went ahead and started proper discussion on a power-based tier list here. If you have anything to say regarding the structure of the list, now is the time to say it!

I don't know the specifics and the people working on it have been rather tight-lipped about it. But I've heard it's supposed to be Netbattle with a lot more bells and whistles. And apparently, you have to register an account on Smogon to either use Competitor or the Smogon server (your battling nick will be synched to your account or something).

And frankly, a mere D/P updated version of NB would be superior to Shoddy. I hate the Shoddy Team builder with a passion.