I don't know how you are so confident that Smogon "has ceased playing the game as it is meant to be played." Do you work for Game Freak?
I don't buy the argument that Game Freak is trying to balance the format for 3v3 singles. 3v3 singles is even more chaotic than 6v6 singles. There is no evidence to support this assertion; Game Freak has been doing 3v3 singles since Pokemon Stadium and it has been doing 6v6 singles since RBY. Somehow, a format in which switching is important is "a pretty silly way to play Pokemon." Dude, do you even Pokemon? Switching is one of the most important mechanics that allow a player to avoid a direct matchup in which one Pokemon will certainly lose.
I am willing to bet that you haven't played much competitive 3v3 Singles if you're claiming that it's even more chaotic than 6v6. It's definitely different, but it's not really more luck-based. You still have 6 Pokemon to choose from; you just have to choose three of them based on your opponent's team and what you think they're likely to use against your team. Thing is, even if it is a bit more luck-based, there's still plenty of skill involved and luck evens out when playing on a ladder.
All the games that have been used as the tournament platforms for Pokemon (Stadium, Colosseum, Battle Revolution) have used 3v3 for their Singles games. Once tournament play moved to the portable games in 5th gen, that format became available there to. As mentioned, stuff like Stealth Rock should be a pretty big hint that 6v6 isn't what GameFreak cares about. "Gee, let's introduce a move that just cripples a bunch of Pokemon and is so powerful that it gets used in every match." GameFreak changes a bunch of existing mechanics between generations. 6th gen alone tweaked the power of
50 moves! It dramatically changed the critical hit mechanics! It nerfed weather-causing Abilities down to 5 turns! Etc., etc. If you accept that GameFreak made all these minor balancing tweaks but left Stealth Rock (a move that cuts Charizard's HP in half when it switches in) unchanged just for lulz, you're kidding yourself. They left it alone because in 3v3—a format where you can't afford to switch constantly—Stealth Rock is a pretty niche move that you mostly use in tandem with phazing, etc.
I'm not claiming that "a format in which switching is important" is "a pretty silly way to play Pokemon". There's still switching in 3v3 Singles. It's still important. It's just not >%75 of your turns.
(Actually, the strongest evidence is that Game Freak is "balancing" Pokemon for 4v4 doubles, because all official tournaments since, like, 2006 have been 4v4 doubles. But I really don't see what beef you have with Smogon making tier lists for 6v6 singles, especially since those tier lists apply only for 6v6 singles anyway and not for other formats like VGC or 6v6 doubles.)
Yes, the format GameFreak seems to care most about is 4v4 Doubles (thank goodness), but my comments were made just within the context of Single Battles.
The only "beef" I have is that the entire English-speaking Pokemon internet community has accepted Smogon's rules as the de facto way to play the game. Really that is GameFreak's fault, though, for not providing a strong push for a single format from the very beginning. Other than that, I have no issue with Smogonites playing by whatever silly rules they want. I just reserve the right to call them silly.
The second biggest problem with Smogon rules (not just tiers, but all rules) is that everything gets grandfathered over from one gen to the next. Stuff like OHKO clause, Evasion clause, and Sleep Clause are relics of the past, but there's no way the old guard at Smogon will ever repeal them. That would make the game "less competitive".
Um, how is this a problem? OHKOs and Evasion have been fundamentally unchanged since their inception, and Sleep Clause is not "a relic of the past." You've made assertions without evidence, so I'll dismiss them without evidence, thanks.
OHKOs and Evasion haven't changed, but all the other game mechanics have. It's about context. There are a ton of moves that bypass accuracy checks and most of them aren't damaging moves. Evasion-raising thereby promotes the use of more interesting strategies like Perish Song, etc. OHKOs may have been crazy back in the day, but do you know how much power creep there's been in Pokemon since then? Probably you do. OHKOs were banned back when Hyper Beam was a reasonable option on Gyarados and Life Orb and Choice items didn't exist!
Sleep mechanics changed a lot between 4th and 5th gens and there are more ways to fight sleep with every new generation. Even if you don't have a counter, Sleep doesn't seem so bad now. IF the sleep-inducing move hits, there's a 1 in 3 chance that you wake up after one turn of sleep, so the sleep user netted nothing.
The equivalent would be if most of f.DS conversation were dominated with talk about a variant of Dominion that had no limit on actions or buys. Everybody on the site would just assume that, unless otherwise stated, that was the game being discussed. And we would have a few cards that were banned (like Copper or Gardens to avoid that combo) and lots of the existing cards that give +Actions and +Buys would be put into a lower "tier" for players who got sick of games where each player spammed non-terminal Torturers until someone won. And of course some cards (like Village) would never see use at all.
lol, this is rich; the Dominion analogy doesn't hold because Dominion and Pokemon feature completely different mechanics, and this is entirely not representative of Smogon anyway. Try harder next time!
I think it's a fine analogy. Yes, the mechanics are completely different. That's why it's an analogy.
