I don't want to argue too much about the stats bc that wasn't really the main point of my post and I don't want to derail the thread too much, but I think you've misunderstood me a bit.
This isn't a fair comparison. I'd argue that STABmons did better at the end because its playerbase knew that the ladder was going away as it was announced very early. Another point I'd like to mention is that STABmons did so badly that it even fell below Inverse. I know what the numbers are; in my opinion Sketchmons did better.
I want to clarify that my objective with talking about the ladder stats here was just to get everyone on the same page about this and correct some of the misinformation I've seen in this thread and elsewhere. I realise that it kinda looks like I was trying to call you out, but that wasn't my intention and I'm sorry if I came across that way.
STABmons plays dropped pretty significantly in late 2015 when that rules change happened to not allow Pokemon to gain both status moves and attacking moves, and this is when it dipped briefly below Inverse. After this rules change was reversed it went back up to where it was previously.
Discounting this period, STABmons was never far below Sketchmons is now, and from about mid-2015 onwards had consistently more plays than Sketchmons does. It's possible that STABmons did better because the playerbase knew the ladder was going, it's hard to know. In any case, this bit was supposed to be just a statement of facts as I percieved them, not an argument in favour of STABmons or Sketchmons. Reading over it again, I think it kinda comes across that way, which isn't what I meant.
The point of this next bit about Sketchmons' forum and OMotM activity was not to say that Sketchmons was unpopular, but rather to point out that Sketchmons was not as popular as a lot of other metagames which also could have reasonably been given a ladder.
You're conveniently excluding the fact that overall OM plays grew.
Here's your own graph of that! Second, how is comparing to a 1v1 format a fair comparison? And finally, it was in the top 5 most active OMotMs. That's "one of the most successful" to me.
Overall OM plays did grow, but that graph is a little bit misleading; the large majority of that growth is from 1v1 and BH both doubling in plays. Other OMs, including OMotM, did not grow as much. In any case, that doesn't invalidate my point; what I was trying to say is that there are many other comparably popular OMotMs that were never seriously considered for a permaladder this generation. This is true even when adjusting for the growth in OMs over time.
Comparing it to Hackmons 1v1 wasn't fair, that's true and that's my bad, I didn't fully think that point through.
Excluding permanent ladders, it was the 6th most posted in metagame thread. 6th out of like 200 OMs...
I was looking more at the end of the generation, where the Sketchmons thread had about a dozen posts over the span of 6 months, 5 of them by Chopin.
It was not chosen because it was a move-based OM.
From your post in the New Directions thread last generation:
The second, based on OMotM activity and the concept, Sketchmons. It also pairs well with AAA, one is any Ability and the other is any Move.
The overall point I want to make is that I think the decision to replace STABmons with Sketchmons last gen was a bit of a silly one in hindsight (note 'in hindsight' — I'm not trying to call anyone out here, I was in favour of adding Sketchmons too), and that acting like we need to have one of either STABmons or Sketchmons is unnecessary.
This is already the plan. I didn't mention it because it's irrelevant to the question of "which OM do you prefer".
Not to be rude or anything, but if this is the case I'm not entirely sure what the point of this poll is. Can you clarify this for me?