Gen 3 np: ADV Suspect Testing - Lean on Me

Hey guys, if you've been paying attention to the Tournaments and PR forums recently, you would know that ADV has been added to the Tour metagames, and that there has been a debate about whether full BP should be allowed or not in said Tours. From that debate, we decided to do a suspect testing round to determine whether or not full BP really is broken enough to merit some sort of restriction in the future. Here are the full details. Please use this thread to discuss the metagame and your thoughts on full BP! Enjoy.
 

alamaster

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My thoughts are that it's kind of like Inconsistent, it isn't broken but it is annoying and doesn't really benefit the metagame. If I had the chance to vote I'd vote for it to stay but if it was voted out I wouldn't miss it or anything.
 

jrrrrrrr

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After years of nobody complaining about BP, I don't see what's changed. Time to get back into ADV and show these noobs whats up :D Sure someone like IPL could go into a tour with a BP team and win, but I really doubt that it's going to be much of an issue. It's too frail for someone who doesn't know the metagame to just pick up and win with.

It's kind of scary that we could retroactively ban things in 5-year old metagames because a tiny handful of current players think that a bunch of people might all use the same type of predictable team (with no evidence, btw)...but the only way that BP will be banned is if the voting pool is as tiny as I think it's going to be. Putting up a suspect test ladder to attract people to a dead metagame is a questionable decision at best, even if our suspect tests didn't show that our community leans towards bans more often than not.
 
I have been just getting into ADV, reaching #1 with a rating 1175 under Good Ass, if that really means anything. From my experience, right now, I don't think BP teams are broken. I've faced a few and they sure are annoying, but not gamebraking.

It's a style of play, such as Stall, Hyper Offensive, etc. It really shouldn't get banned, or limited to 2 or 3 pokemon. Baton Pass teams can be countered with Phazing, Perish Song, etc. Yeah, there is Ingrain and Mr. Mime but I don't see it much of a issue. You can also set up on them (Curselax, DD Mence, CM Suicune, etc). I'd say we leave at least leave it for now.
 

Destiny Warrior

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What's the rating we need to reach? Though no doubt I won't get there, with an odd timezone and SMogon server constantly crashing...

I still think using BP requires you to think on your feet against a smart opponent, so I stand by my statement that it is OU.
 

jrrrrrrr

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What's the rating we need to reach? Though no doubt I won't get there, with an odd timezone and SMogon server constantly crashing...
There is no required rating from what I've gathered, it's the top 15 players + anyone within 15 points of #15. Kind of a shallow pool if you ask me, but considering it's a largely dead metagame I'd be surprised if we could have gotten 30 voters otherwise.

I still think using BP requires you to think on your feet against a smart opponent, so I stand by my statement that it is OU.
I don't think (most) people actually believe it's broken, people just don't want a situation where every team in the tour is BP so that ADV noobs can squeak out some free points during those weeks. You don't need to win ADV tours to get into the finals, but if you can manage a couple of points by BPing against noobs who don't know what they're doing in the early rounds then you could be at a huge advantage. That would be understandably annoying. But with that said, it doesn't make sense to me to do a suspect test in the first place when the main objection to BP isn't "it's overpowered", but rather "it's annoying to think about in a tour-style format of play". Too bad that argument was cut short by time constraints, since this needs to finish before the tour no matter what =[
 
Just saying, I've brawled my way into 30th in about forty minutes with just a BP team I came up with off the top of my head and almost beat KG's anti-BP team (Rock Slide Miss cost me). As far as I can see, this is going to centralize the game. People are running multiple Roar/Whirlwind users, even on Aerodactyl (which is completely insane), Taunt DD Tyranitar, Perish Song Celebi--and I'm still winning just by playing smart and knowing the counters to Baton Pass when I see them. Although like I said, this has been forty minutes. We have a month's time ahead of us to integrate BP into the meta, so hopefully it happens. After all, Shadow Ball Ninjask and Silver Wind Scizor only maintain their surprise for so long.
 
I don't think we should be changing the ADV metagame at all from what it was a few years back. Baton Pass wasn't a problem a few years ago, and it isn't a problem now, its a playstyle just like any other. And while its very easy to play against a new opponent with it (Hey, so was UU Rain, and I don't think we ever talked about banning that. Didn't someone talk about nerfing it but that was shot down?) you have to play smart against most opponents.
 
I really don't like this test, changing policy this old after the effects of one thread seems like it isn't worth it. Is BP really that annoying / skill defying? BP teams still require skill to operate with and skill to defend against, just like any other playstyle, and banning them on account of not being broken, but simply annoying, seems irrational. This would be like having a UU tourney with no rain teams or a 4th gen DP (as pre-platinum) tourney with no hyper offense. If a noob can scrape his way past round 1 or 2 with a BP team, then he probably has the skill level to use any other kind of team against the same opponents.

That said, I will probably partake in this test anyway. I'm trying not to jump the gun and make theorymon calls, but I wouldn't expect an Ubers vote from me if I get there.
 
Yeah I don't see BP as banworthy; it wasn't banned 5 years ago, why ban it now? Smith said basically what I wanted to say, anyone who can successfully run a BP team can probably play other playstyles as well. Good players will adapt and will be ready to handle BP, because good player with anti BP vs. scrub with BP should end up in the good player winning.

Just my two cents. I'll probably take part in this test.
 
I can't say I'm all too happy about BP even being considered. Smith and BKC have basically said everything i want to say regarding this, but I still have some points. First, prediction is a players biggest advantage against a BP team. save those focus punches for when they matter, whirlwind on the turn they baton pass. Make sure you have attacks that can severely damage Smeargle on most if not all Pokemon, the turn it ingrains (if you've been playing well) should not have a sub active.

Anyways, I'm not a fan of the usage of BP teams because they dictate the flow of battle so much. the non-bp player is just attacking and hoping for luck to be on his side.
 
So far haven't been super impressed by the ladder, but it's still early. Specifically the fact that at any given time theres between 4 and 12 people on is not amusing me since there's a lot of repeat matches and a lot of matches with giant rating ranges... which is a problem I think everyone expected, but it is still irritating. Normally not all of the people that are "online" are actually battling, but at any given time 0-2 of the people battling are actually using Baton Pass teams. Of the people using BP, most of them are really awful at using them and are probably not giving people a very accurate view of BP, which continues to make me wonder what exactly we think we're going to learn here. Earthworm is good at it, and I think I recall someone else doing some work against me, but most of the BP teams are really sad -- I saw one where an Aero lead outran a Ninjask lead and such -- it's kind of worrying. There's nothing to learn from players who aren't even playing competently.

For the most part the anti-BP side was making an argument more similar to what Ala did in this topic about how BP is an undesirable "unpokemon" type of playstyle and should be claused for that reason(which I've been interested to find out most foreign sites still playing Advance are already doing), rather than that BP is objectively broken, so I'm still not really sure what this suspect test is supposed to prove... this seems misguided to me.

At least a few more people are playing Advance, I guess.
 

yond

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I really don't see BP much more broken or more overpowered than any other threat in the game. Really, all you need to beat bp is have a roar user and a taunt user(for if they have ingrain). Putting in moves like that as precautions for BP isn't really hindering players teams. I think of it like this: I run hp grass on my zapdos to stop swampert from stopping me, the same thinking can be used with taunt and roar for baton pass. I know the connection is weak as BP is much more threatening than any single pokemon, but like everyone else, I have not seen enough to deem it banworthy.
 

gene

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good lord way to miss the point

not to mention taunt and roar aren't going to do shit
 
After playing a bit, I've noticed BP is too subjective and depends too much on team matchup. At the moment, I'm in favor of limiting BP, but we'll see.

EDIT: Its not the end of the world if we don't limit it, since we would adjust. But, its much more competitive to not have to resort to a phazer on every team. In other words, some unnecessary centralization could occur on these moves, which I find not fun.
 

jrrrrrrr

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JPeople are running multiple Roar/Whirlwind users, even on Aerodactyl (which is completely insane), Taunt DD Tyranitar, Perish Song Celebi--and I'm still winning just by playing smart and knowing the counters to Baton Pass when I see them.
All of these things were standard in ADV when it was Smogon's preferred metagame. They even have sets in our analyses (although Aerodactyl's Sleep Talk/Whirlwind set was removed IIRC), so that should tell you something about how viable they are. They serve purposes other than anti-BP, the fact that they can also help against BP teams is just an added bonus.
 
We put things in the analyses because they were good enough to be viable, not because they were the best options available.

- Whirlwind Aerodactyl was always horrible on all but the most gimmicky teams(and isn't even on the analysis anymore)
- Taunt DDtar is probably the least effective usable Tar set right now against non-BP teams outside of sets that are intentional metagame counters for metagames that no longer exist like Boah
- Perish Song Celebi is pretty gimmicky, since it's really only effective for last pokemon Cursers, with Umbreon support, or specifically to use as a BP counter. Which isn't even all that effective of a BP counter, since Mr. Mime dispels it when he switches in, so he has to be killed before it does anything of value most of the time.
- Using "multiple phazers" isn't exactly super common anyway, I can't recall a time it was "standard" for people to use > 2 at any point in Advance, and 1 was always definitely the most common.

Pokemon are capable of doing a lot of things, but a team of Pokemon who happen to have gimmicky sets in their analyses that all counter BP doesn't make a standard team, it makes a counter team. I would wager teams containing many of these Pokemon aren't doing very well against non-BP teams, which are still a majority of the teams on the ladder.





And on the post by Yondie, seriously, you have to be fucking kidding me. Play more BP teams if you think Roar is consistently a viable solution to BP. Your post really makes me question how many games you've played against competent BP users, or on the flipside, how well you've done against non-BP teams with whatever you might be using.

EDIT: To be a little more thorough on Taunt, it's really only helpful at all against BP teams when used on Pokemon who have stat-up moves themselves, which is relegated pretty much to the Dragon Dancing version of TTar and Gyarados. The former has to sacrifice a move that is much better against non-BP teams, and the latter is frankly not a very good Pokemon in Advance with the coverage you get (HP Rock + EQ is ok coverage with sketchy power, HP Fly + EQ is better power(but iffy...) with worse coverage, can't touch any physical wall that doesn't rely on phazing it either way and the HP Flying version is destroyed by the everpresen

Related notes: BP teams' Vaporeons normally have Surf which makes it a lot harder for DDtar to set up. I realize there is a specific team on the ladder right now where this is not the case.
 
I think Smogon has gotten really banhappy lately and it needs to stop.

Suspect testing six years after the fact is really, really odd. What are you going to learn from it? The fact that nobody complained when ADV was the primary focus because of "honor" seems foolish to me; honor doesn't matter when you're playing to win and if anyone was playing to win, I'd expect it to be Smogon. Even if "pros" refrained from using it in friendlies, I really can't see how an entire generation could go by without one play-to-win tournament being dominated by Baton Pass. "Honor" didn't keep Mewtwo from needing a hard ban, did it? This is a solution in search of a problem.

And what purpose is a suspect test going to serve? You're going to get two kinds of people in there; the ones who are interested in banning it, and newbs who don't know how to do it right hoping for a few wins in the tour. Already you can see that new people who don't know how to do Baton Pass right are losing over and over; what effect do you expect them to have in the actual tournament?

The only real solution is to skip the suspect test (because I think it's going to turn out to be a giant waste of time with no real data produced), and just get on with it. If there's a problem with BP, it'll be shown there. And some of you seem to be concerned with "wasting" a week or two... what is different now from all the other ADV tournaments? Why the current obsession with "getting it right"- is this going to be the last tournament ever? And most importantly, why did you wait six years to bring this up?

I wonder if Stealth Rock will be the last thing Smogon bans.
~Uiru
 

Jackal

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Posting to not only agree with the above, but also to point out that so far on the ladder, EW's BP team is the only half decent one I have even run into, and I have been playing it quite a bit. I heard Jules has been having success with one as well but I haven't seen it yet.

If it is a team only the very best players can use, then I firmly believe those players can beat you with any team, not just BP.
 
It's worth noting they're 2-3 on the ladder right now. I don't know how much ADV experience Earthworm had before this, but I know I'm pretty sure I've fought Jules a few times when he was using not-BP and wasn't very impressed and I know his rating wasn't very impressive until recently, either. I suspect both of them have much higher ratings than they would if they were using non-BP.

Most BP teams doing poorly doesn't interest me much as evidence for or against considering how little knowledge of ADV most players on the ladder have - when the same people using special Tyranitar and Salamence and using Careful Forry or whatever are using BP I don't think how they're doing is very useful information.
 
this test is worthless and is only showing what was known way back in advance gen days that unless you let a Baton pass team set up they are not going to sweep your team they require too much things to go right in order to work.

this problem doesn't exist and only exist in the mind of ban happy non serious players who never played during the original era.
 

JabbaTheGriffin

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this problem doesn't exist and only exist in the mind of ban happy non serious players who never played during the original era.
would you please avoid making such ridiculous statements when simply reading a few posts in this thread and the PR thread would prove you're completely wrong

anyway, carl and synre have perfectly summed up the issue and i feel that anyone taking this test seriously should take the time to read their posts in the PR thread
 
I've battled EW on the ladder using his BP team, and I can't say it's totally broken. If you can somehow take out one link in the chain, pretty much the entire thing crumbles. It's just very hard to do that.

That being said, I completely agree with Syrne and carl.
 

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