On occasion, we've been getting a few users raising questions about how our stuff works. Since showdown is primarily dominated by Smogon's tiers, rules, etc, I'd like to just take some time to explain the differences in our servers
For starters, Breakdown is what we like to call a competitive Dream World server. While most servers consider Dream World to be "negligible," we do not.
This means that:
Dream World abilities and things that are or have been considered "unreleased" have always been taken into account for our tiers.
We have Complex Bans, which are specific Pokemon and ability combination bans. As in "Froslass is only banned with Snow Cloak"
We have our own unique tiers that we regularly vote on. Yes they don't match with Smogon's for a reason. If you have a problem with them then do something about it, vote in our next election!
No preview is the default. If you want to play matches with Team Preview, you can use Custom Game to do so.
If you find yourself asking "why" or thinking that you don't like these things, well that's just how they've always been here. If you prefer the way Smogon or another server does stuff, then you should probably just stick with them.