I had a rough day today, it would have been nice to just sit down with a beer and a pizza and play pokemon as I often do. But today, I've been attacked by multiple people for making a decision that I stand by, and it seems that many people don't understand our (or at least, my) thought process behind the decision.
I have a few points to make.
Firstly, the initial backlash. As I pointed out in the mono council chat, "People are never happy with any decision we make ever". Look at when we made the major update, removing the majority of type-bans:
I might finish this post after I've cried for a few hours. In my opinion (not that it's ever going to matter) it's way too much way too quickly, makes psychic incredibly powerful, hugely cripples bug, and brings back stalling flying. I see it as going against the old philosophy of creating a fair meta-game where diversity is encouraged, creating an even wider gulf between the better and worse types, and it's just sad things like for the sake of 'going by an ethos', banning damp and smooth rock on other types in my opinion is only discouraging creativity even more, because no-one can claim that something like a sandstorm steel or a rain dragon is broken. Oh well, I'm sure it suits alot of people other than myself. v_v
Do you think psychic is incredibly powerful? That bug is unusable? Is Stall Flying OP?
Right now, the tier is pretty damn balanced, compared to how it's been in the past. And more than that, we've got our own subforum. Some people still disagree with the decision, perhaps, but I think it's pretty clear the overall opinion that we were doing something wrong is gone. It happens pretty much whatever we do, the amount of arguments I made over Talonflame at the time is just insane tbh. And I'd be amazed if this wasn't the same.
Next, I'd like to bring up the following point: The mono council doesn't agree on much. For example, there was some very heated debate over whether to suspect M-Sab. We had a
lot of argument over the tiering philosophy, and the original removal of type-bans. Pretty much whatever it is, there'll be some level of disagreement and discussion, be it what to suspect, what our tiering philosophy is, who we want to replace someone in the council, etc.
I'd also like to put forward this point: That the council is comprised of intelligent, unbiased people who want what's best for monotype as a whole.
When we put these two things together, and see that despite this there was a 7/7 agreement on banning aegi within a very short timeframe, I think you have to understand that "But I think it's silly" isn't that great an argument. We have reasons for what we're doing, so please at least try to understand our explanations before flaming us for those decisions.
Finally, onto the type-bans, and aegi in particular. Ghost isn't exactly the greatest type in any case, AFAIK it hasn't been used in monopl and while it was neat for ghost to have it, I'm honestly unconvinced that it makes a large impact on the tier as a whole. That said, it not making much difference isn't a reason to ban it, so onto the real point here:
The reason we got rid of type bans was that they are complex. Yes, mono is different from other tiers, but that doesn't stop them from being complex. No, we don't dislike complex bans because we think you all have a mental age of two and a half. If you want a whole argument on complex bans, feel free to take a trip down to Policy Review and dig up some of the old threads there, there's plenty of discussion.
Now, what will we gain from getting rid of type-bans? Well, the tier's position within smogon, really. Monotype keep its room on Showdown? Can't argue with that. Monotype part of OMGS? Yes please. Monotype get its own subforum? Monotype actually start to become respected by people on smogon? Get more good players coming in because they realise it can actually be a fun meta? Quite frankly, if you're arguing that aegi on ghost is more important than this progression of mono being accepted by smogon then I don't see where you're coming from.
Anyway, that's my long, rambling, drunken post out the way. Please attack these points if you want to continue flaming me ^_^