Evasion Clause Discussion Topic

[Joel]

We've been through evasion clause before on Smogon, and I spoke my mind. Do I agree with ban-happy Smogon, no, and I was just going to leave this thread alone, but then I read this.......

Furthermore, anyone from the pro-ban group has yet to acknowledge the fact that I made this post, let alone respond to it.

Evasion is not broken. Jimera's calculations make this insanely clear. If it was broken, it would not be sitting at the comfortable barely% usage. So I want to hear a legitimate argument not why evasion should be banned but why absolutely ANYTHING should be banned for the purpose of "fun." Who gets to decide fun? Why do they get to choose for everybody? Why should we prevent people from running nonbroken strategies for the purpose of a couple people and their vision of "fun?" Where does this optimization of a "fun" meta end?

To the Council themselves, who seem to be more concerned with consistency, I ask, when did a consistent ruleset become more important than a minimal ruleset? It's clear that these abilities are not broken, and Smogon's policy is to not ban anything unbroken. Which would be easier, a simple reword of evasion clause (hell, you could even not reword it and say that the rule is a bit inconsistent) or the banning of team combinations from OU play? A consistent ruleset is only good to make things easier, and a complex ban sure as balls isn't the way to achieve that. And again, why on earth would we ban things purely for the sake of consistency? If you want to ban Sand Veil and Snow Cloak because you as well are sick of hax, as the other pro-ban people are, then go ahead. I won't be happy, but at least you'll have a legit motivation. Consistency is absolutely a terrible reason to implement more bans.

.......I strongly agree with what Pwnemon says, in this post, and his linked post.

Therefore, those of us who might not agree with Smogon's Standard rules should not be posting in this thread.

Yes, I'm aware that makes me look like a hypocrite, but there are other metagames. PO has Street Pokemon (no rules), wi-fiers have GBU (very few rules). Use them...That's what I do.

No need to disrupt a thread by saying you don't like something if there are other viable options.

Sorry in advance to anyone who thinks I am derailing the thread. If my post becomes the cause of further off-topic discussion, please delete it, but please leave the post for long enough for Pwnemon to read it.

*on-topic* I do agree also for Standard rules with Jabba's suggestion in post #2. I believe the complex ban might be the best option.

 

[SJCrew]

Evasion is not broken.

You were there for Garchomp, right? Hail in UU too? Those are huge examples and the community should have learned from them. Evasion forcing us to ban Pokemon that are otherwise just fine is not my idea of 'okay'. If we had this clause set in place to begin with, we would probably still be able to use these Pokemon in their respective tiers, and continue using them once it has been implemented. As long as we leave this policy unchecked and allow only certain forms of Evasion that we deem 'non-broken', this will happen again in future generations where these Pokemon will almost certainly be allowed once more and we'll be having this discussion again.

Will it alter the game? Yes. But not towards a more skill based game. Just a different game.

So hitting Gliscor 100% of the time with Ice Beam as opposed to 80% is not an advancement to a more skill-based game?

I get your vibe. In the context of our current metagame, the change is small, and relatively insignificant. However, this policy change is much bigger than our current metagame. Under the new Evasion clause, we can eliminate any lingering cases now, however small they may be, and start off with a clean slate in Gen 6 and on. To me, that's more of a plus for competitive Pokemon than leaving things be so that some guy can used Sandslash on a Sandstorm team (for reasons unknown to me when Claydol, Blastoise, and Hitmontop are usually better choices overall).

 

[Stratos]

You were there for Garchomp, right? Hail in UU too? Those are huge examples and the community should have learned from them. Evasion forcing us to ban Pokemon that are otherwise just fine is not my idea of 'okay'. If we had this clause set in place to begin with, we would probably still be able to use these Pokemon in their respective tiers, and continue using them once it has been implemented. As long as we leave this policy unchecked and allow only certain forms of Evasion that we deem 'non-broken', this will happen again in future generations where these Pokemon will almost certainly be allowed once more and we'll be having this discussion again.

Do you really believe Garchomp was banned for his Sand Veil ability as opposed to his amazing typing, perfect speed tier, absurd attack and access to Sword Dance?

hint: if you answered yes, then Excadrill would be OU.

It's a similar story with Hail in UU. BlizzSpam was the reason it was banned, not Snow Cloak. it had all of one decent abuser in Froslass. If they wanted to ban Snow Cloak, Froslass would be BL, not Hail.

So hitting Gliscor 100% of the time with Ice Beam as opposed to 80% is not an advancement to a more skill-based game?

it's really not. The game becomes more analytical, maybe, and more predictable. But the entire point of Pokemon is, as someone i think jas said earlier, risk management. Why is prediction so highly hailed? If you could know for certain everything that was going to happen you would be playing Tic-Tac-Toe.

I get your vibe. In the context of our current metagame, the change is small, and relatively insignificant. However, this policy change is much bigger than our current metagame. Under the new Evasion clause, we can eliminate any lingering cases now, however small they may be, and start off with a clean slate in Gen 6 and on. To me, that's more of a plus for competitive Pokemon than leaving things be so that some guy can used Sandslash on a Sandstorm team (for reasons unknown to me when Claydol, Blastoise, and Hitmontop are usually better choices overall).

In the new Gen VI, Evasion Clause will be reconsidered just like every ban ever is for every generation, so this is an absurdly moot point.

also would somebody please give me one good response to my posts about the precedent this ban is setting? i would appreciate it not being skipped over - i put time into that post.

 

[Jimera0]

I was looking around the Policy Forums to see if I could find a list of who's actually on the council (I didn't find it, if someone could fill me in that'd be great), and then I saw the Characteristics of a Desirable Metagame thread, and thought "gee, I should read that and see exactly how it pertains to the current debate" and so I did.

I came across a number of things there that I thought pertained to this debate, but in particular, one section stood out to me.

Luck
The metagame should allow a reasonable degree of chance to affect all facets of gameplay and game outcomes.

Explanation:
Game players love the excitement, tension, and unpredictability associated with luck factors in games. While Pokemon is not a game of "pure chance", luck is a contributing factor in almost all major gameplay elements. If the metagame seeks to eliminate or unreasonably reduce elements of chance, it would run contrary to part of the basic appeal of Pokemon gameplay. The metagame should have many features that rely on random probability, and allow luck to have a significant role in determining competitive outcomes.

Issues and Concerns:

• Should luck be zero sum?
• How much luck is "reasonable"? What makes luck "unreasonable"?
• Are Skill and Luck mutually exclusive? Or complimentary?

Other Comments:
While some players supposedly despise luck, it is a compelling underlying lure for many players. While this characteristic can be maddeningly hard to quantify and analyze, it's existence as a positive feature of the game should not be ignored.​

The bolded phrase especially stood out to me. I thought "damn, if that's not the most condemning argument against not banning anything further I don't know what is". Because that's exactly what these potential bans are looking to do; remove an element of luck from the metagame for no reason beyond eliminating luck. You can't claim that it violates the skill section, as I quote again;

Skill
The metagame should require knowledge and practice to become an expert player and to achieve consistent success at the highest levels of play.

The presence of Sand Veil and Snow Cloak do not compromise this aspect at all. Sand Veil and Snow Cloak, like any other good aspect of Pokemon, do not automatically award victory to the user, or make it so an unskilled player can consistently win. This small element does not change the perception that a skilled player will do better overall than an unskilled player. The important thing to note is that this is applied to the metagame as a whole, not individual games. Pokemon, being Pokemon, will never reach a point where the more skilled player ALWAYS wins. Losing one or two matches (of every hundred or two I might add) due to a gameplay element hardly swings the balance to the point where blind luck outweighs skill.

To summarize, one of the single most important posts on this forum quite clearly states that a degree of luck is a desirable element of the game, and that we should not try to prune elements of it without reason. Meanwhile, nowhere in the post does it say that losing 1 game of every hundred or more to a luck element lessens the skill aspect of the game by itself. Indeed, it implies the opposite, that such rare losses are a normal and desirable aspect of the game. As such, I make the claim that according to the characteristics of a desirable metagame, that these bans would lead to a less desirable metagame rather than a more desirable one.

 

[Adamant Zoroark]

hint: if you answered yes, then Excadrill would be OU.

I don't know how this relates to evasion. Sand Rush allowed Excadrill to outspeed basically the entire metagame in the sand, making sweeping easy. You can't really compare Sand Rush to evasion.

 

[Jimera0]

I don't know how this relates to evasion. Sand Rush allowed Excadrill to outspeed basically the entire metagame in the sand, making sweeping easy. You can't really compare Sand Rush to evasion.

Just a quick note, you're misinterpreting the point of the comparison. He was comparing Garchomp to Excadrill, not taking Sand Veil into consideration. Essentially, he was pointing out that Garchomp is similarly strong and would've been considered broken Sand Veil or no Sand Veil.

 

[Adamant Zoroark]

Just a quick note, you're misinterpreting the point of the comparison. He was comparing Garchomp to Excadrill, not taking Sand Veil into consideration. Essentially, he was pointing out that Garchomp is similarly strong and would've been considered broken Sand Veil or no Sand Veil.

Actually Sand Veil was actually one of the primary reasons Garchomp was banned. Anyway, that a whole different debate.

Anyway, Sand Rush is what broke Excadrill, and it's a completely different scenario anyway.

 

[Stratos]

what broke excadrill was its quote "amazing typing, perfect speed tier, absurd attack and access to Sword Dance"

which is the comparison i was drawing to Chompy

also i'd still like a response to my posts from earlier

 

[Seth Vilo]

In addition to Pwnemon, responses from the ban-side to jimera0's highlight of the Smogon policy on luck would be beneficial and appreciated for this discussion.

 

[SJCrew]

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4096987&postcount=14

LOL did anybody else read this

 

[jas61292]

Jimera0, earlier, you had mentioned about one of my posts on luck and skill that you could not have said it any better.

Well, you just did.

What you have said above is probably the best way of explaining many of my beliefs on the metagame as a whole. I think this is the single most important point in the entire discussion, and I would urge everyone to read it before considering any further arguments for either side. Skill and luck are not opposites, and, for the game of Pokemon, need to coexist. If there is no reason for removing evasion other than removing luck then doing so would be against the spirit of the game.

 

[Anchormon92]

Agreeing with the anti-banners. However, I would like to point out that the low usage of SC/SV should not necessarily be an argument against its effectiveness. It is possible (extremely unlikely, but still possible) that there are broken moves/abilities/Pokemon that no one has found yet. Also, the absurd amount of U-Turn/Volt Switch usage lately does not make it broken.

This page has so many good posts based on Smogon's philosophy on when to ban things, and I agree with jas61292; everyone needs to read Jimera0's post quoting the actual philosophy on site. I also strongly agree with jas61292 on the previous page regarding counters. Aerial Ace, Shock Wave, Swift, No Guard, and Mold Breaker exist for a reason. If you don't want to use them, don't use them. Just because a move/ability isn't used much now doesn't mean it doesn't have a purpose and can be useful later. If usage of evasionmons increases, you'll have to make adjustments, just like how Volt-Turn usage has somewhat dictated effectiveness of Pokemon in the current metagame.

 

[jrp]

For people that feel the need to cite Swift/Shock Wave/Aerial Ace/Vital Throw/ect, there's a reason people don't use these moves. It's because they're terrible. Aura Sphere is a great move, but it has bad distribution. The only things that run the 60 BP always hit moves tend to be technician Pokemon. And that's usually Scyther/Scizor.

Personally I think that the evasion abilities should be banned (in a combo ban sort of way). We jumped the shark when we banned hail from UU, for what was arguably about frosslass abusing snow cloak. And for people arguing that luck defines part of a desirable metagame, it's been stated before that other forms of luck can be controlled. Shield Dust prevents random freezes/flinches/burns/ect from happening. Steadfast and Inner Focus stop ScarfRachi from bullshitting its way through your team. Moves like blizzard/thunder/hurricane lack usage outside of weather. While it's granted that Aerial Ace will always hit, what happens when you're up against Sand Veil Gliscor? Aerial Ace isn't going to do shit to it. Shock Wave doesn't do ANYTHING to it. It resists everything else except for Swift, and exactly what the fuck uses Swift? Nasty Plot Ambipom?

I'm going to just put forth that I believe that
A. Evasion boosting abilities should be banned from use (like what happened with Moody.) If you have an alternate ability that's unreleased, float around in limbo for a bit.
B. Combo-Ban the abilities. I don't give a fuck about the slippery slope argument, nobody's going to seriously start banning move+pokemon combinations or anything you might bring up.
C. This only really applies to the lower tiers, because I only really think that evasion abilities pose a legitimate threat there. Maybe it's because I'm slightly pissed about the hail ban, but honestly if a Pokemon is broken with Sand Veil, then it should be banned from that tier.

So yeah, my overly long two cents.

 

[Adamant Zoroark]

Agreeing with the anti-banners. However, I would like to point out that the low usage of SC/SV should not necessarily be an argument against its effectiveness. It is possible (extremely unlikely, but still possible) that there are broken moves/abilities/Pokemon that no one has found yet. Also, the absurd amount of U-Turn/Volt Switch usage lately does not make it broken.

This page has so many good posts based on Smogon's philosophy on when to ban things, and I agree with jas61292; everyone needs to read Jimera0's post quoting the actual philosophy on site. I also strongly agree with jas61292 on the previous page regarding counters. Aerial Ace, Shock Wave, Swift, No Guard, and Mold Breaker exist for a reason. If you don't want to use them, don't use them. Just because a move/ability isn't used much now doesn't mean it doesn't have a purpose and can be useful later. If usage of evasionmons increases, you'll have to make adjustments, just like how Volt-Turn usage has somewhat dictated effectiveness of Pokemon in the current metagame.

I disagree with the "Aerial Ace, mold breaker, no guard" logic. They exist, but in the case of Aerial Ace/Shock Wave/etc. the moves are of pitifully low base power that even with Sand Veil taken into account, the more powerful moves to use outdamage it on average. Mold Breaker is also poorly distributed; the only OU relevant Pokemon that gets it is Haxorus. Same with No Guard, the only OU relevant Pokemon that gets it (and has it released) is Machamp.

The problem with the abilities is that if you do check them with moves like Aerial Ace, your damage output will be shit, but if you don't, you have a chance of getting luck fucked by Sand Veil. You're screwed no matter what you do.

If you're having problems with Jirachi, you should have no trouble fitting a Sub-Charge Beam Magnezone on your team. The point is, Jirachi is a lot easier to prepare for, whereas with Sand Veil/Snow Cloak, you can actually get past legitimate checks, given just one miss. You could bring up no-miss moves all you want, but the truth stands that these moves are truly not competitively viable.

 

[ReshiramBlackZekromWhite]

My 2¢

I spent over an hour doing research for this post, editing it, and writing it. Please read it.

I, personally, HATE banning ANYTHING. It seems, and I say this with all due respect, that the entire of Smogon is focused on banning all aspects of Pokémon in order to create a "perfect" metagame. This is the only reason that I do not play Smogon tiers.

Some Overpowered Pokémon (and my opinion)

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However, I will agree with people about some Pokémon being overpowered, and most definitely metagame-changing. Perfect examples are Excadrill, Thundurus, Manaphy, and Blaziken. All three of these were sent to Übers because they influenced the metagame too much.

All three of these have access to the following:

1. A good ability
2. Strong offensive stats
3. Movepool/set that counters many threats
4. Items that fit perfectly

For the first category, all of these four Pokémon have, essentially, Speed-boosting abilities. Prankster gives priority to non-Attacking moves, Speed Boost consistently increases Speed, and Sand Rush doubles speed in a Sandstorm. Hydration cures Manaphy of status in rain. Of course, these all have drawbacks too: Excadrill suddenly becomes slow if it is outside a Sandstorm, as Manaphy loses that reusable Lum Berry outside of rain. Blaziken usually needs a turn to Protect, or Swords Dance/Claw Sharpen before Speed Boost activates, and Thundurus only gets priority on non-Offensive moves (not that it matters with its great speed).

For the second category, all of them have strong Offensive stats, which allows them all to be great sweepers. Manaphy's straight-100 stats are not the best for sweeping, but they allow Manaphy to set up and survive a couple of hits. Excadrill has amazing Attack, and its sub-par Speed is made up for with its ability. Blaziken's Attack and Special Attack are both great, and like Excadrill, its Speed is made up for with its ability. Thundurus has great offensive stats, along with excellent Speed.

For the third category, all of them have good movesets that fit them perfectly. Blaziken getting Hi Jump Kick and Hone Claws was great, as the accuracy is negated and the higher Power is amazing. Both Flare Blitz and Shadow Claw are great options too, with the former getting additional STAB and Sun-boosts, and the latter hitting Ghosts and Psychics hard, and having a high Crit chance. Manaphy can use Tail Glow to drastically boost its Special Attack, then sweep with Surf and Ice Beam. It does not even have to worry about resists because of how powerful it becomes. With Hydration and Rain, Rest completely heals it and it does not have to worry about status. Excadrill can sweep with Earthquake, Rock Slide, and X-Scissor, and is the fastest Rapid Spinner out there. Thundurus can hit hard with Thunder(bolts) and Volt Switches, while trolling others with Thunder Wave, Substitute, Taunt, and Nasty Plot.

Finally, all of them have great Item pairs. Blaziken has a Focus Sash so it can use SD/CS and sweep with SB, Excadrill has Air Balloon to save it from SE Earthquakes, Thundurus can effectively use Leftovers with Substitute, and Life Orb Manaphy works with Rest.

Some Pokémon that may be banned (and my opinion)

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Now, let us compare that to a list of Pokémon that have only Sand Veil or Snow Cloak for their ability.

-Pokémon with no non-DW ability but Sand Veil
--Sandshrew
--Sandslash
--Cacnea
--Cacturne
--Gible
--Gabite
--Garchomp
-Pokémon with no non-DW ability but Snow Cloak:
--Glaceon
--Froslass
--Cubchoo
--Beartic

This leaves us with Sandslash, Cacturne, Garchomp, Glaceon, Froslass, and Beartic.
The following details their DW abilities, and if they have been released:

Sandslash: Sand Rush (unreleased)
Cacturne: Water Absorb (released)
Garchomp: Rough Skin (unreleased)
Glaceon: Ice Body (released)
Froslass: Cursed Body (unreleased)
Beartic: Swift Swim (unreleased)

Now, let us look at the banning of these. Banning Ability+PermaWeather means that these can still be used, via the whole host of Pokémon that can learn and use Hail and Sandstorm. However, nobody would actually waste a moveslot on that, especially if a team is based around that.
If we go back to the four aforementioned categories of all the four previous Pokémon, this chart shows if they can be put to use with these ones:
Pokémon
USEFUL Ability
Strong Stats
Good Movepool
Useful Item
Sandslash
Have to say yes.
Good Atk/Def, meh everything else
SR, EQ, XS, good lead
?
Cacturne
↑
Good offense, bad everything else
SubSeed, SubPunch
?
Garchomp
↑
Very good offense/speed
See reviews
Choice/LO/Lefties
Glaceon
↑
Good Sp.Atk/Def, meh everything else
Strong Sp.Atks
?
Froslass
↑
Good Speed/SpAtk, meh everything else
Spikes, DBond, BoltBeam
Focus Sash
Beartic
↑
Meh (good Atk, crap everything else.
Icicle Crash, etc.
?

The only thing that relates to the above section is GARCHOMP. Strong attacker with great overall stats. Both Choice items, LO, and Leftovers work great with this.

Why don’t we just ban SV Garchomp with PermaWeather? The other Pokémon really need something to pull them through.

It makes more sense than anything else. Garchomp is already overpowered, especially with Scarf, as it's speed tier is great.

Other Pokémon actually need the ability, as almost all of them do jackshit without it. Froslass relies on luck to get more layers of Spikes down, and possibly do a Destiny Bond KO. Same with Sandslash with Stealth Rock. Cacturne is great with a SubSeed/Punch, and Sandstorm+SandVeil helps keep its health up while damaging its opponents, and helping its Substitutes stay up. Beartic, I don't know. What can it do outside of Swift Swim, which isn't released? And Glaceon relies on Hail so much, it can't really afford not to be in it. Lefties+Ice Body is great for healing, but it's rather frail on the Special side, so Lefties + Snow Cloak is great for evading hits. Hail also helps its Blizzard, which is it's best form of offense.

Essentially, Garchomp can easily function outside of SandStorm, but other things can't. Banning Garchomp with Perma Weather is the best idea. It still allows it to be used, so not to diminish the metagame in any way, but allows it to be controlled.

Besides, an Ice Shard from the standard Choice Band Mamoswine will ALWAYS OHKO ANY GARCHOMP. NO MATTER WHAT.

 

[Jimera0]

jonathanrp, I would like to direct you to some of my earlier posts.

Also, I find it very unlikely that the council for UU would have banned hail had it just been snow cloak that was the issue. I'm pretty sure I remember reading their arguments and they had more of a problem with Blizspam than Snow Cloak iirc.

Speaking of which, if you're only concerned with the lower teirs there's little reason to be supporting a ban here at all, as I'm pretty sure this is OU focused. I've already shown through statistical analysis that SV/SC are not broken in OU, so I feel that if it's a problem for the lower teirs only their respective coucil's and the like will deal with them without having to affect OU.

But seriously, go read some of the arguments that have been made. Pretty much all your ideas have been addressed.

also, I agree that the slippery slope argument is full of shit. I'm more concerned with the precendent this is setting for future council decisions. We can't start banning things that aren't even remotely broken just because some people complain about them. We can't let a few loud complainers shape the game for everyone else. While it doesn't guarentee we fall down a proverbial slippery slope, there's no real reason to take a step and find out in this particular case.

 

[Jaetheho]

Just a question. if the abilities were banned, is it possible to give them no ability or if that is unprogrammable, useless abilities like illuminate? seems like a viable idea.

edit: and dont ban them.

luck is part of the game!
if we were to be completely skillful, we'd get rid of RNG and use average damage and also ban jirachi and togekiss and secondary effects. you would ultimately get rid of their niche. frosslass exists because of that and so does cacturne.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

Just a question. if the abilities were banned, is it possible to give them no ability or if that is unprogrammable, useless abilities like illuminate? seems like a viable idea.

Not possible as far as I know.

Banning Sand Veil and Snow Cloak would ban Sandslash, Gabite, Cacturne, Gible, Sandshrew, Cacnea, Beartic, Cubchoo, Froslass, and Glaceon from all metagames ever I assume.

Not to mention that it goes against like every Smogon policy ever, but that was tackled in my last post...

 

[shinyskarmory]

I know I'm not a super high ranked ladder player or anything, but I think I'll chip in here.

I thought the evasion clause was fine as is. It took care of most of the common methods of raising evasion while not outright banning pokemon who used abilities to boost their evasion like Sand Veil and Snow Cloak.

Sand Veil and Snow Cloak are balanced because with the current evasion clause, they give a maximum of +1 evasion. This isn't some super "oh I have to run Shock Wave or Aerial Ace to hit them durrrrrr" case, like is sometimes seen in Nintendo's competitions. +1 evasion decreases accuracy by only 25%. You are still going to hit the pokemon in question over 70% of the time. The person using this pokemon is outright relying on luck to win them the battle, which will not help them climb the ladder in the long run.

Do not ban Sand Veil and Snow Cloak. I have no position on the other items up for discussion.

 

[Stratos]

For people that feel the need to cite Swift/Shock Wave/Aerial Ace/Vital Throw/ect, there's a reason people don't use these moves. It's because they're terrible. Aura Sphere is a great move, but it has bad distribution. The only things that run the 60 BP always hit moves tend to be technician Pokemon. And that's usually Scyther/Scizor.

as we've explained before, it's not about the actual viability of the moves. Similar to counters to other entire STRATEGIES, they're complete crap. who runs Shield Dust?

However, we were pointing out that it was unfair to treat sand veil as a whole as something to be countered, and then instead of FlinchHax, use Jirachi. Every pokemon will be more counterable than the strategy that it runs. Sand Veil is no exception, since its best abuser is lolgliscor.

Personally I think that the evasion abilities should be banned (in a combo ban sort of way). We jumped the shark when we banned hail from UU, for what was arguably about frosslass abusing snow cloak. And for people arguing that luck defines part of a desirable metagame, it's been stated before that other forms of luck can be controlled. Shield Dust prevents random freezes/flinches/burns/ect from happening. Steadfast and Inner Focus stop ScarfRachi from bullshitting its way through your team. Moves like blizzard/thunder/hurricane lack usage outside of weather. While it's granted that Aerial Ace will always hit, what happens when you're up against Sand Veil Gliscor? Aerial Ace isn't going to do shit to it. Shock Wave doesn't do ANYTHING to it. It resists everything else except for Swift, and exactly what the fuck uses Swift? Nasty Plot Ambipom?

while i've already addressed the second part of this paragraph, i'd like to direct you to "It's a similar story with Hail in UU. BlizzSpam was the reason it was banned, not Snow Cloak. it had all of one decent abuser in Froslass. If they wanted to ban Snow Cloak, Froslass would be BL, not Hail." this quote earlier on the page.

I'm going to just put forth that I believe that
A. Evasion boosting abilities should be banned from use (like what happened with Moody.) If you have an alternate ability that's unreleased, float around in limbo for a bit.

so you're willing to ban a large amount of pokemon completely from the meta for the sake of winning a couple more battles due to lack of hax?

B. Combo-Ban the abilities. I don't give a fuck about the slippery slope argument, nobody's going to seriously start banning move+pokemon combinations or anything you might bring up.

the precedent everyone is worried about setting here is not move+pokemon (which btw has already happened in 3 gen OU) but rather the idea of banning non-broken things for the purpose of "optimizing" the meta. I've already addressed this oh-so-many times so look at my post quoted at the top of the page if you want a more thorough answer.

C. This only really applies to the lower tiers, because I only really think that evasion abilities pose a legitimate threat there. Maybe it's because I'm slightly pissed about the hail ban, but honestly if a Pokemon is broken with Sand Veil, then it should be banned from that tier.

if you're pissed about hail, as i've said before, ban blizzard and retry it.

I disagree with the "Aerial Ace, mold breaker, no guard" logic. They exist, but in the case of Aerial Ace/Shock Wave/etc. the moves are of pitifully low base power that even with Sand Veil taken into account, the more powerful moves to use outdamage it on average. Mold Breaker is also poorly distributed; the only OU relevant Pokemon that gets it is Haxorus. Same with No Guard, the only OU relevant Pokemon that gets it (and has it released) is Machamp.

that's not how this suspect thing works. We don't point out two perfectly viable OU relevant hard counters and you say "well i don't want to use them so there!"

The problem with the abilities is that if you do check them with moves like Aerial Ace, your damage output will be shit, but if you don't, you have a chance of getting luck fucked by Sand Veil. You're screwed no matter what you do.

or you could run ferro or skarm or slowbro or anything that counters both Gliscor and Mamo which is a crap ton.

If you're having problems with Jirachi, you should have no trouble fitting a Sub-Charge Beam Magnezone on your team. The point is, Jirachi is a lot easier to prepare for, whereas with Sand Veil/Snow Cloak, you can actually get past legitimate checks, given just one miss. You could bring up no-miss moves all you want, but the truth stands that these moves are truly not competitively viable.

or you could run haxorus or machamp or all these other counters i've already outlined.

Not possible as far as I know.

Banning Sand Veil and Snow Cloak would ban Sandslash, Gabite, Cacturne, Gible, Sandshrew, Cacnea, Beartic, Cubchoo, Froslass, and Glaceon from all metagames ever I assume.

Not to mention that it goes against like every Smogon policy ever, but that was tackled in my last post...

don't forget garchomp.

also i'd still like a response to my earlier posts quoted at the top of the page.

also: As far as i'm concerned, SV/SC is not broken and anyone trying to say otherwise is just wrong.

 

[Taylor]

The reason why I disagree with these bans is because some people simply do not play this game enough, and confuse their own experiences with the metagame as it is.

The first five battles I have in a single day, one or two of them ends with a ray of hax that changes the outcome of the battle; due to a critical hit or a less-than-100% accurate move missing. That's part of the game, and it isn't as competitively sound as our philosophy aderes to.

The same can be said for the topic at hand. You first need to set up weather, and then bring in Gliscor to make an attempt to set up. The one attack Gliscor evades could've been a less than 100% accurate move; though I know anyone here would blame it on Sand Veil alone, and not the fact their Draco Meteor does not have 100% accuracy. All this, and all you needed to do was switch in a Politoed?

The beginning of BW OU, it was a well-built team centered around a certain weather which would wind up more successful than others. We are at a stage now where the majority of us can't see past Rain stall/Sand offense; so we continue to use these strategies.

I can't vouch for UU at all, but currently OU is not suffering, by any stretch of the imagination, due to Sand Veil evasion because there's literally only one Pokemon in the entire metagame that can actually use it; and it begs the question, is it even Gliscor's most universal trait of choice? Poison Heal has been impressive on Gliscor this generation and admittedly I was one of those who prefered Roost + Sand Veil + Stealth Rock at the time.

Garchomp was used a heck of a lot more than Gliscor could ever dream of, and its Dragon/Ground coverage that also wielded a necessary Fire Fang, allowed it to use its base stats and Swords Dance to force the opponent to deal with it before they lost the game.

However, I find the difference between Garchomp and a lot of other sweepers was that, say for instance, if their Mamoswine was waiting for Garchomp to switch in after they knocked out a Pokemon that turn, your last ditch effort at a shot to win the game (with Garchomp left) was still in tact. Assuming sand is present, their Mamoswine's Ice Shard may miss, as you unfairly, in a one-on-one situation, OHKO their mammoth with a grin on your face. Another example, would be if their Gliscor was to have your Garchomp beat, they could easily miss (combination of Ice Fang's 95% accuracy and Sand Veil) as you Swords Dance your way to victory.

That, was the difference between Excadrill and Garchomp. I will, however, state that Rock Slide is one of the most controversial moves and will merrily flinch your Skarmory before it had a chance to phaze Excadrill out.

 

[alexwolf]

So I have to pack an Ice-type / Aromatherapy / Lum Berry to prevent a potential 10% frz? You make it sound like there are many options, but in actual practice, you can't prevent the Ice Beam from potentially freezing the several Pokemon that lack those resources. You also can't afford to switch out each time to your Ice-type / Lum Berry mon to tank that Ice Beam either (would you switch in your Lum TTar into a LO Starmie, just because it may potentially Ice Beam frz / Thunder par you?). Saying that you could counter "hax" is silly, because you can't anticipate when it happens.

Let's not get into details, because in the end, as i said, it doesn't matter. Thses things are game mechanics and cannot be changed.

I mean if we want to eliminate hax, we can always ban Rock Slide, Body Slam, Scald, Discharge, Lava Plume, Thunder, etc without messing with game mechanics. I think we all agree that such hax are not pervasive enough to be banned. The case is even stronger for Sand Veil / Snow Cloak, which is far less used.

All these moves are counterable and are absolutely fine in the meta. If you don't want to get flinched by Rock Slide move first, if you don't want to get paralyzed from Body Slam carry either a status absorber or a Ghost, If you don't want to get burned from Scald and Lava Plume carry a Fire type and/or a water absorb poke or a status absorber, if you want to avoid getting paralyzed by Thunder carry a ground poke or a status absorber or a Volt Aborb poke.
They also don't revolve solely around luck.

You could also minimize Sand Veil misses by playing more aggressively so that you wont give Gliscor much time to sweep or let alone set up. You could use more accurate moves like Surf instead of Hydro Pump to minimize the chances of misses. You could use walls that can afford to miss once or even twice. What you outlined are not ways to counter hax, since they don't exist, but way to deal or minimize hax. One can also deal or minimize the passive Evasion boost, too.

Yeah as you said my example was a bad one, because you cannot counter crits as you cannot counter evasion. But crits are part of the game mechanics and cannot be changed.

You guys know that people often use rapid spin (which is an even WORSE attack than thoese bad never missing attacks and have worse distripution) just to have a chance at countering entry hazards.
So is seems that people are more than willing to use a sub-opitmal moves to counter a strategy.....if this strategy is game-changing/powerful enough often enough to justify it's use. The thing about sand veil/snow cloak is that it is appently not common enough or game changing enough to justify the use of things like swift espeon or hail cloyster. Gliscor is the only pokemon that even sometimes uses a veil in it's own weather and in about 95% of games with sand veil gliscor, the misses are nothing more than a minor inconveinience. I honestly get BSed out of more wins from random ice beam freezes than evasion abilities of any sort if you want to talk about haxy victories. Just saying.

Yes but the difference is that Rapid Spin actually removes hazards, while the always hitting moves do shit. Have fun killing pokes with a 60 BP move.
Another difference is that Rapid Spin is not the only measure against entry hazards. You don't have to carry a Rapid Spinner in every team. You can just make a team resilient to entry hazards and you will be fine, but the same cannot be said for evasion.

Furthermore, anyone from the pro-ban group has yet to acknowledge the fact that I made this post, let alone respond to it.

Evasion is not broken. Jimera's calculations make this insanely clear. If it was broken, it would not be sitting at the comfortable barely% usage. So I want to hear a legitimate argument not why evasion should be banned but why absolutely ANYTHING should be banned for the purpose of "fun." Who gets to decide fun? Why do they get to choose for everybody? Why should we prevent people from running nonbroken strategies for the purpose of a couple people and their vision of "fun?" Where does this optimization of a "fun" meta end?

To the Council themselves, who seem to be more concerned with consistency, I ask, when did a consistent ruleset become more important than a minimal ruleset? It's clear that these abilities are not broken, and Smogon's policy is to not ban anything unbroken. Which would be easier, a simple reword of evasion clause (hell, you could even not reword it and say that the rule is a bit inconsistent) or the banning of team combinations from OU play? A consistent ruleset is only good to make things easier, and a complex ban sure as balls isn't the way to achieve that. And again, why on earth would we ban things purely for the sake of consistency? If you want to ban Sand Veil and Snow Cloak because you as well are sick of hax, as the other pro-ban people are, then go ahead. I won't be happy, but at least you'll have a legit motivation. Consistency is absolutely a terrible reason to implement more bans.

Pwnemon as described by Jabba in the OP the matter with evasion is not brokeness.

Everyone agrees that we are better without DT/Minimize in our meta, even though they are not broken moves, so we banned them.

So again not only broken things get banned.

 

[Adamant Zoroark]

that's not how this suspect thing works. We don't point out two perfectly viable OU relevant hard counters and you say "well i don't want to use them so there!"

You don't get it do you? Machamp is uncommon, and Haxorus isn't a Pokemon that you can just chuck on any team and call it a day.

or you could run ferro or skarm or slowbro or anything that counters both Gliscor and Mamo which is a crap ton.

The only truly reliable counter you mentioned is Slowbro. You seem to forget that Gliscor learns Taunt. Ferrothorn won't really like taking repeated Earthquakes from Mamoswine, either. Anyway, you have 5 other Pokemon for a reason. You could also apply this argument to evasion moves, so I see no difference.

 

[Boorego]

Yes but the difference is that Rapid Spin actually removes hazards, while the always hitting moves do shit. Have fun killing pokes with a 60 BP move.
Another difference is that Rapid Spin is not the only measure against entry hazards. You don't have to carry a Rapid Spinner in every team. You can just make a team resilient to entry hazards and you will be fine, but the same cannot be said for evasion.

In all fairness, rapid spin is literally giving your opponent a free turn, best case scenario. And thoese "swift-like" attacks are strong enough to break a gliscor's sub, heck cb scizor's aerial ace can three shot the standard gliscor acrobat set(2 shots mamoswine and frosslass as well) so you could viably run that attack if you REALLY hated evasionmons....of course if jimea0's calculations are anywhere close to accurate the attack would only be helpful in about one in every 400 battles. But the point here is that the moves exist and do technically get the job done.

Of course these awful attacks are NOT the only thing you can do against sand veil/snow cloak as your statement seems to say, you could simply pack a politoed/ninetales and be done with the Veil's right then and there, or even pack hail/raindance/sunny day or a random bulky pokemon or a raindance kingdra or something. And frankly these options are lot more viable than running lum berry on everything or switching a landrous into thunder starmie "to avoid the paralisis chance".

But even those measure measures are not even close to necessairy to beat evaisionmons and are not a requirement for any team. Just like you can make your team not mind hazards that much and therefor not have to resort to the awful rapid spin attack you can make your team not mind the evaisonmons themselves much as well. Gliscor (who is the only evasionmon that is even commonly seen in his weather) isn't exactly an offensive powerhouse. There are PLENTY of pokemon that can counter him even taking some misses into account. Physically defensive rotom, skarmory, slowbro, mew, cloyster and zapdos are just some pokemon off the top of my head that can do this.

So these evaison ablities can be countered, only effect a tiny amount of battles and are no where close to broken or too haxy for competetive pokemon, only being a slight annoyance in most the battles they are featured in.

 

[AasTmO]

You could also apply this argument to evasion moves, so I see no difference.

Swooping in here to try and make you see a difference on this one. The set of pokemon that Double Team is HUGE. A Gliscor, Mamoswine, Cacturne or Froslass with a free turn is that much, but imagine a Reuniclus at +1 evasion. Seeing how most pokemon have trouble 2HKOing the bastard, with evasion added into the mix there you have a deadly pokemon. More fun is coming when you realize that evasion boosts can be baton passed. These problems are both moot with items, as they have way less of percentage, and abilities are only on that restricted set of pokemon.