Rejected Tiering FE and NFE forms together

[Tuthur]

This thread is mostly about Basculin and Pikachu. Both species share the specificity of having two forms that share the same typing and stats but with one being able to evolve, while the other is not. The fully evolved form (Pikachu-Caps and Basculin-B/R) are tiered as FE Pokemon and start in OU, while the other ones start untiered (Pikachu and Basculin-W).

It has been determined by past threads (1 2) that typing and stats are objective metrics that allow to separate forms. These rules are already sufficient to tier separately other instances of FE and NFE forms in Corsola, Mr. Mime, and Linoone, and every other form I can think of. They are also the reasons why Pokemon with different abilities and/or movepools such as Squawkabilly, Meowstic, and Toxtricity are tiered together. The cosmetic and lore aspects have never been reasons to tier Pokemon separately.

In my opinion, the access to a new item isn't objective enough to warrant both forms to be tiered separately. This falls in the same line as Meowstic Male's access to Prankster making it much better than Meowstic Female as a Screen setter, or only one of the Toxtricity form learning Shift Gear. Considering them as different forms would open the door at tiering movesets, which is something undesirable. I would argue this is the same about Basculin and Pikachu, Pikachu being a quite interesting example as it never made use of Eviolite and carve its niche around its access to event moves that Pikachu Cap don't have access to like Extreme Speed and Surf. I do also believe the current policy could cause some problem in some hypothetical future. The Pokemon Company has been releasing a lot of exclusive items for the past generations like Mega Stones, Z Crystals, and Booster Energy. Under the hypothesis of The Pokemon Company releasing an item that only works for event variants of a species, would they be tiered separately? If yes, is it different from Extreme Speed + Sacred Fire Entei in earlier generations? If no, is it different from Basculin-W's access to Eviolite?

My point is that the access to an item is similar to the access to a certain move and/or ability, and quite different from having different stats and typing. The formers are a group of options available to the form, while the laters are inherent caracteristics of it. Every Basculin set is going to have a 70/92/65/80/55/98 stats spread and a pure Water-typing, just like both Blaze and Speed Boost Blaziken have a 80/120/70/110/70/80 stats spread and a dual Fire-Fighting typing. However, you can't have Galarian Zapdos with an Electric-Flying typing and a 90/90/85/125/90/100 stat spread. This what makes Zapdos forms objectively different, while Basculin forms aren't more different than two different sets of the same Pokemon.

 

[Irpachuza]

My point is that the access to an item is similar to the access to a certain move and/or ability, and quite different from having different stats and typing.

I think this whole post makes sense if you aim at disputing semantics over the limits of what is considered a tierable forme and what isn't. I agree, per the threads you linked, that the common midground seems to be "having more then 2 or 3 relevant differences on potential sets", and therefore making your argument above valid. I also resonate with the necessity of giving those threads (and this topic) certain official closure, even though I don't think it's of the utmost priority unless some people are really eager to see worse versions of Pokemon in lower tiers.

That being said, I don't think the Basculin W + Eviolite issue is being addressed correctly by the OP. Yes, it's "a difference of just one item", but what having access to that item entails is the real deal of why Basculin W is being tiered differently. Not the item per se, but the big difference here is that Basculin W is officially considered NFE, and while this seems addressed on the title, it doesn't seem properly weighted on the arguments following.
There clearly is a hard rule on "FE start in OU & NFE start in NFE/Untiered" that helps putting certain order when new Pokemon are introduced to a Generation. If this rule wouldn't exist, arguments for potentially strong NFEs to start in OU instead would be allowed, while it has been proven multiple times that it's more than likely that these Pokemon will rarely go beyond NU, so they are fine starting untiered and "jumping tiers" the next month.
Furthermore, having a new forme of an FE mon being Untiered instead of OU because it's NFE and nothing else, is a non-issue for lower tiers: if Basculin formes are currently thriving at PU, and the ZU team knows the Basculin W will have all effectively the same traits, just quickban it. This would apply if Basc was RU as well, NU would just quickban it before it gets introduced, and would move on. That seems 100% times a better solution than having it not being usable on PU for a couple of months because it started in OU, or getting into semantic arguments for every minimum difference of every untested new "NFE forme of an FE" addition. I believe this works for most if not all potential cases that could arise regarding this type of addition.

Under the hypothesis of The Pokemon Company releasing an item that only works for event variants of a species, would they be tiered separately?

So, no to this (or at least not necessarily) because the hard rule being applied here isn't having an item that differentiates them, but them being FE or NFE. Eviolite happens to be the official way to tell when a Pokemon is NFE (See Combee and Salandit, that can use it disregarding gender) and allows for the simplicity of not having semantic and prospective conversations for each new NFE Pokemon added. Reminder that even the clearly-not-even-suited-for-ZU Meltan had to start in OU and go all the way down, since it's considered FE officially (and Eviolite doesn't work on it).

Now, I do agree that having the Pikachu-hat formes in OU when NFE regular Pikachu is Untiered and unviable is at the very least annoying, but the only difference between this case and Meltan's is that they clutter the teambuilder way more. This is the opposite situation of Basculin's, since here we have a FE forme of an NFE Pokemon that's clearly unviable and would have been prefered to start untiered instead, at least on a prospective competitive pov.

Hence, my proposals here would be:
- Asking tiering leaders to propose a blanket guideline for determining when Pokemon formes should be considered for separated tiering. OP is quite clear on how blurry the line can be without it, and multiple PR discussions have happened across the years but none seemed to have a closing.
- If these guidelines are extremely objective, they could open the possibility of arguing for exemptions on the FE/NFE differentiation when starting a generation.
- That being said, objective guidelines that avoid semantic discussions seem rather difficult to achieve (since relevancy of forme differences will likely need metrics like "competitiveness" and "viability"), and therefore I'd argue for those prospective guidelines to include and be clear regarding the FE/NFE objective distinction when tiering new pokemon, to avoid further confusions and to make it official and easier to argue with/against if necessary.
- I'd agree with OP's sentiment regarding Pikachu-hat formes (aka unviable FE formes of NFE untiered Pokemon) but instead of proposing ignoring the NFE/FE distinction, I'd like to prompt the tiering team to put in effect similar quickdrop metrics to the ones used during SS DLCs for June's Usage Tiering. I'd swear I saw conversation about this effectively happening, but couldn't find any official announcement.