This is why reporting winning combos is mandatory and important and a good idea for your meta in the long run. Don't want to labour the point but I too would want a better picture of what is going on (and obviously, I do not think one format not being good is a reason to leave beyblade - if that's happening, people need to be talking to hosts and to the wider community of both their areas and the rest of the WBO about what's going on - not that this hasn't been done to an extent, but generally if something is hurting your enjoyment, the answer is to do something about it, and that something doesn't have to depend on the committee banning the part, simply having less tournaments in a particular format would be good.
Personally, I would suggest we consider actually formally allowing tournament-specific bans ("special bans", perhaps?) on certain parts that are generally agreed to be particularly dominant if not quite to the point where we would ban it in standard (perhaps to the point where we would want to ban it very quickly in limited given tournament data - so basically where Scythe is sitting at now I guess (though I haven't heard back from you guys on whether last weekend was sufficient evidence), maybe a little more?) - which very few seem to feel F230 (or at least Dragoon F230CF/GCF) would not fit. Perhaps we limit it to only every second tournament in that format or whatever, and obviously it would be on a case-by-case basis based on who benefits/suffers from the additional condition, but there are plenty of similar examples in other sports where this sort of thing can be done. In addition, it would also allow us to see how any potential bans work out. Obviously we'd have to be careful that said tournament are reasonable if we are putting them in the beypoints system, but with F230 seeing as it was one of the last parts in Zero-G we're basically assured of that.
Now obviously this is a fairly large thing to propose and would require some discussion, and to anyone reading this and hoping it'll happen I would not get your hopes up - there's no precedent for this and it clashes somewhat with the WBO's general approach to official metagames, but I feel that if we're losing members as dedicated as Time was (I mean he stayed despite being the object of my ire when I was having a particularly rough time with my depression which is pretty impressive) then we should probably look at doing something to help fix that (it sounds like in Time's case there were other factors at play too, but yeah).
Even if we can't agree on whether F230 needs a ban outright, I think we should do something to help communities it seems to be causing some problem for (which would be checked as part of the process anyway - confirmed attendees would have to agree to it in large majority etc (I'm assuming those who are anti-ban on a part will be reasonable based on a limitation of how often a special ban can be invoked for a format, i.e. if it was 50/50 they still have the other half of the tournaments - if anyone who has been against the ban wants to speak up about whether that's a realistic expectation or not if this doesn't get shot down instantly that'd be good.))
The current "you can ask but not demand" measure just doesn't work in highly competitive areas or any area with even one highly competitive player (even one or two players who are pro ban still use things in cases like that as a general policy, and if any of them want to comment on my suggestion/their thoughts with regards to it that would be good too) though honestly I would think (and this could be 100% wrong) a situation like that is more likely to cause variation in the norm for beypoints than actually allowing a special ban.
The same measure could have helped us see what Basalt and/or BD145 were doing back in the day which might have helped us actually take action against them (and a basalt free tournament, even with hell, would probably have made it apparent that 230 was not much of a problem by itself once we'd shifted back up to mid height for attack customs, as IIRC that was something which caused some distraction in the discussions (though this is going a long, long way back so that could be incorrect, but I remember a general feeling that 230 was a problem from some people, at the least that was something mentioned early in discussions that eventually lead to Limited, though there we had things in the 85mm between 145 and 230 as well so that helped)).
I know there is a strong disapproval towards the concept of individual banlists for each metagame or giving areas a crutch if they simply aren't using the right things, and I am completely in agreement with the former and at least to the word of the latter if not the spirit in which it is generally used.
Yes, this is a step in that direction - but this is not a black and white matter - we can go part way without going all in. This would be something that has limitations - it would only be for every second tournament in a format in a region, or whatever % is deemed acceptable (and I would absolutely not agree on 100% being acceptable myself), and it is subject to the various measures I explained - a strong agreement from the attendees in the community and it would only be for parts or even just specific combinations of parts that are generally agreed to be particularly dominant but are nonetheless legal - of which there have been very few. It means a little more work for the committee in approving a tournament, but probably not too much if the list of acceptable candidates for special ban is kept very strict - it would likely just apply to F230 in Zero-G, nothing in Standard, perhaps, assuming Scythe and Omega go in the pre-AN update, Libra could still sit there in Limited (it would have to be significantly stronger than I expect - perhaps Mold 2 getting use and being a little better than Mold 3 offensively despite not having the main contact points that make Mold 3 work well) without being bannable (which I definitely think should be avoided at nearly all costs), and even then it would only be eligible once we were sure it was not just hype.
HMS has too small an assortment of parts to really ban any and to do anything you'd have a massive impact on it so there's likely nothing there, and Plastics, well that one combo I pm'd Kei about a while back is strong enough to deserve it but it doesn't have enough testing to be eligible and neither of those two formats see enough use for it to really be suitable there anyway.
So, it is a small crutch for some areas but I think definitely small enough as to not be an issue.
(Apr. 03, 2014 3:07 AM)Kai-V Wrote: [...]perhaps he defeated many 'beginner' Bladers and therefore counts it as the customization he used the most.[...]
I know it is not what you meant by this, but seeing as it's a topic related to stuff I've mentioned quite a bit in the past: ability to handle tourney fodder (non-competitive customs that fill up most tournaments) is one of the largest parts of a combination's ability to dominate overall and absolutely integral to significant success in terms of tournament usage.
Heck that's like the only thing 10bBistool does (one of a couple of reasons it's not on the competitive combos list albeit only by the smallest of margins) and look at the fanclub that thing has - okay, that doesn't conflict with what you said, but given the target F230 combinations also have proven ability against a wide range of top-tier customizations that would be something of relevance to the discussion - basically in showing that it is very much a practical, spammable custom.