SwagPlay, evaluating potential bans (basic definition of "uncompetitive" in OP)

[Steamroll]

I made a mistake there, sorry. There's not a seperate thread for moderators, but were are not voting for anything here, and the OU Council could ignore everything said in here.

Considering that there's 967 posts in this thread yeah basically everything's going to be ignored if anyone values their sanity.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Can you at least please back this up with the poll or something before you start deleting every post that mentions diversity? From my personal experiences people prefer more diversity to less, and the only thing that came up when I tried searching was http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/characteristics-of-a-desirable-pokemon-metagame.66515/ which also says that variety in general is a good thing. It only gets extreme when battles aren't decided as much by battling skill or teambuilding but by a rock-paper-scissors type team matchup system, like the 1v1 metagame. It's extreme when you can't reasonably check every threat, or nearly every threat, and it comes down to whether or not the opponent has something you can't check or vice versa.

I personally don't see that but maybe others do who have been playing longer and have more generations to compare (the metagame is also a bit more varied right now than it will be later simply because people are trying out new things, although that's definitely started to die down by now).

You can find the survey results from BW here: http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...rch-on-tiering-looking-forward-to-xy.3486728/


Diversity was rated as a highly desirable attribute, and 66% of players do agree that maximizing diversity is a goal of tiering, 13% strongly agree, which is significant. However, the importance of diversity as a tiering goal was rated very low. Meanwhile 58% of the community voted it inappropriate to use tiering as a method of preserving team types (except for stall, which everyone wants to save like the whales), and only 46% indicated overcentralization as a problem that needs to be addressed by tiering. There is also a small but stat significant concern about the problems of too much diversity.


What this means specifically is that while diversity is a desirable trait, it's also a weak argument for a tiering decision (as it's a desirable but not important metagame attribute). Also team types should not be protected by tiering and overcentralization is not acknowledged as a problem.

 

[ShadowMarioGalaxy64]

This thread was almost the end of me. I almost posted something along the lines of "you are all crybabies" and almost entirely blamed everyone for anything happening in this thread (long story...won't post it...rather not mention it again).

This thread went bad FAST, so...I'll keep it short...as short as I can keep it. If people didn't complain about it in previous Generations, we likely should do the same thing we did in previous Generations: Nothing. I mean, only a very select few Pokemon can use this "strategy" (and to conserve the sanities of many, I use the word very loosely) and it's not like they're ENTIRELY gamebreaking threats. Thundurus and Sableye are honestly the big two in my eyes and Klefki is...meh. All of these Prankster Pokemon have better things to do than rely on luck anyways; Thundurus can TauntWave, Sableye has WispRecover, Klefki has Dual Screens, and Liepard is garbage, so why use it?

Honestly, while I personally side for "ban nothing" closely relating to the fact that what I almost posted was you people are pansified crybabies, if Confusion itself or Confusion+Pranster is banned, this will not hurt my team building, nor will it remove any of my personal favorite team options or moves. This is one ban that, as long as we're not banning Pokemon (not happening, guys), I don't feel any hurt. So, while I feel like nothing should be banned, a ban will have absolutely no effect on me.

Now, who wants some popcorn? I feel like watching the detereoration of this thread ^_^

 

[mido_128]

Wow first post. Where the hell have I been?

Lets keep this simple (my preferred battling style as well) -

No game should be forced to revolve almost entirely around luck.

Just Ban Swagger.

 

[Petrico94]

Just curious, does anyone have a replay of a Swagplay vs Swagplay game to share?
Weather teams usually have full wars to maintain the weather to their liking and stall vs stall is just nothing happening for ages.

 

[Arash]

Wow first post. Where the hell have I been?

Lets keep this simple (my preferred battling style as well) -

No game should be forced to revolve almost entirely around luck.

Just Ban Swagger.

a game where both teams lead with hazard deoxys-D is basically changed by the first 50/50 coin flip. no game should be forced to revolve around that kind of luck, so I say we ban speed ties.

if i were to use quick claw on my pokemon, that is (possibly) luck that you had no choice in facing. that is unfair and should be banned asap.

entei gets sacred fire and has a 45% chance of burning any non-fire type switch in. I don't want to try and fit in a fire type to counter this strategy, and everything with water veil (prevents burns) is a shitmon, so we should ban entei and/or sacred fire.

where does it end?

 

[Wobbyble]

the amount of focus miss and speed tie discussion in this thread oh my god

 

[pharaohcalvin]

a game where both teams lead with hazard deoxys-D is basically changed by the first 50/50 coin flip. no game should be forced to revolve around that kind of luck, so I say we ban speed ties.

if i were to use quick claw on my pokemon, that is (possibly) luck that you had no choice in facing. that is unfair and should be banned asap.

entei gets sacred fire and has a 45% chance of burning any non-fire type switch in. I don't want to try and fit in a fire type to counter this strategy, and everything with water veil (prevents burns) is a shitmon, so we should ban entei and/or sacred fire.

where does it end?

Special attackers do not mind the burn as that much. Heal Bell can remove the burn. Burn itself is not luck based. Quick Claw does not turn every battle into a coin flip. It only does that when you can KO them, so it is not on the same level of luck based. I do agree with Quick Claw, it should not be allowed. Purely because it only brings luck to the table. As far as Speed Ties go, in game mechanic that can not be avoided. So no go on banning.

 

[Petrico94]

the amount of focus miss and speed tie discussion in this thread oh my god

Focus Blast: "I'm going to take the risk of using a 120 special fighting attack that is much less likely to hit than my psychic attack. I have a 30% chance of missing but that Tyranitar deserves it. If he switches out atleast his Blissey will take some damage from the SR."

Swagger: "I'm going to use my prankster ability to make that person's pokemon less likely to hit me and then paralyze them making their chances of hitting me 25%. Meanwhile I'll use foul play to take advantage of those bonus attack stats. If they switch around they're just going to spread the paralysis. I don't think he deserves to watch his team do nothing praying for a chance to do anything but fuck them I want to get to 2000+ and this counts as skilled team design."

 

[mido_128]

a game where both teams lead with hazard deoxys-D is basically changed by the first 50/50 coin flip. no game should be forced to revolve around that kind of luck, so I say we ban speed ties.

if i were to use quick claw on my pokemon, that is (possibly) luck that you had no choice in facing. that is unfair and should be banned asap.

entei gets sacred fire and has a 45% chance of burning any non-fire type switch in. I don't want to try and fit in a fire type to counter this strategy, and everything with water veil (prevents burns) is a shitmon, so we should ban entei and/or sacred fire.

where does it end?

Can't be bothered replying to 'examples' 2 and 3 as 'example' 1 is the only one with any common relevance.

'Example' 1 - Your '50/50 coin flip' can be remedied with just a single use of Defog...

 

[atomicllamas]

a game where both teams lead with hazard deoxys-D is basically changed by the first 50/50 coin flip. no game should be forced to revolve around that kind of luck, so I say we ban speed ties.

if i were to use quick claw on my pokemon, that is (possibly) luck that you had no choice in facing. that is unfair and should be banned asap.

entei gets sacred fire and has a 45% chance of burning any non-fire type switch in. I don't want to try and fit in a fire type to counter this strategy, and everything with water veil (prevents burns) is a shitmon, so we should ban entei and/or sacred fire.

where does it end?

Comparing prankster swagger to a speed tie is really stupid, like honestly they aren't even similar. While speed ties are determined by luck, neither player built their team specifically for the introduction of luck via speed ties, and speed ties are an unavoidable game mechanism, unlike prankster swagger which is the strategy of flipping coins.

No one is arguing that people shouldn't adapt there team to account for chance (ie Entei's sacred fire, which can be responded to by any special attacker that resists fire or any fire type), but when a strategy aims to win solely through the introduction of luck it begins to be a problem. This is Smogon, a competitive pokemon website, if I wanted to play a game that depends only on luck I would be playing Candy Land where my decisions don't mean anything and the game is "predetermined by the shuffle of the cards". I know your response will be something like, "there are ways to build your team to get around Prankster Swagger," but the reality is not consistently enough (if even 30% of games are won by pure luck that is too much) and not without compromising the integrity of your team against the majority of the meta, because most responses to Prankster Swagger are sub-par if not straight up unviable against the rest of the meta. Basically while I accept the presence of luck while playing pokemon because it is part of the game, I don't accept a strategy that relies on the generation of luck as a competitive one, and because of this it is extremely unhealthy for the competitive meta game smogon is trying to create.

where does it end?

Ahhh, nice slippery slope fallacy, because banning one thing obviously means we have to ban more. If we are gonna post in a thread debating whether something is healthy for the meta game, can we at least avoid using logical fallacies?

 

[Arash]

Quick Claw does not turn every battle into a coin flip. It only does that when you can KO them, so it is not on the same level of luck based. I do agree with Quick Claw, it should not be allowed. Purely because it only brings luck to the table,

the point was that quick claw is like having no item 75% of the time, much like swagger is like wasting a turn 50% of the time.

Ahhh, nice slippery slope fallacy, because banning one thing obviously means we have to ban more. If we are gonna post in a thread debating whether something is healthy for the meta game, can we at least avoid using logical fallacies?

since 4th gen, i have seen garchomp get banned because of sand veil hax (twice), then moody banned, then sand veil / snow cloak banned, then brightpowder. if you don't see the slippery slope happening over time then i don't know what to tell you

 

[leehg5925]

I'm all for banning moves that solely causes confusion on the basis it's a dice roll you cannot control and subjected on the receiving side without suffering consequences.

 

[atomicllamas]

since 4th gen, i have seen garchomp get banned because of sand veil hax (twice), then moody banned, then sand veil / snow cloak banned, then brightpowder. if you don't see the slippery slope happening over time then i don't know what to tell you

Good job failing to address the actual content of my post. A fallacy is still a fallacy honey (notice only moody is still banned :o ).

 

[pharaohcalvin]

the point was that quick claw is like having no item 75% of the time, much like swagger is like wasting a turn 50% of the time.



since 4th gen, i have seen garchomp get banned because of sand veil hax (twice), then moody banned, then sand veil / snow cloak banned, then brightpowder. if you don't see the slippery slope happening over time then i don't know what to tell you

All of the things you listed only add luck to the game. This is not a slippery slope. It is just us banning things on the same level line as before. For adding just luck to the game. As far as Quick Claw goes, both it and Swagger only add luck to the game. Which is why they should be banned. it doesn't matter if they fail sometimes. It still stands out that they have a chance of making bad players win from just luck. (Swagger just does this more then Quick Claw)

 

[Wobbyble]

Special attackers do not mind the burn as that much. Heal Bell can remove the burn. Burn itself is not luck based. Quick Claw does not turn every battle into a coin flip. It only does that when you can KO them, so it is not on the same level of luck based. I do agree with Quick Claw, it should not be allowed. Purely because it only brings luck to the table. As far as Speed Ties go, in game mechanic that can not be avoided. So no go on banning.

Broken sarcasm meter detected.

since 4th gen, i have seen garchomp get banned because of sand veil hax (twice), then moody banned, then sand veil / snow cloak banned, then brightpowder. if you don't see the slippery slope happening over time then i don't know what to tell you

You make it sound like it was a bad thing that they got banned. There's not much "luck based" stuff to ban after Swagplay. Scald and paralysis will never go on the table, I'd probably go back to PO if they did. Attract lol, yeah that ones not happening either.

Can we stop discussing Quick Claw thanks. Might as well discuss Run Away's competitive value.

 

[Petrico94]

I'm all for banning moves that solely causes confusion on the basis it's a dice roll you cannot control and subjected on the receiving side without suffering consequences.

idk, some of these attacks are kind of good. Signal beam is fairly decent giving spare coverage and only has 10% confusion. Hurricane is bad for it's confusion but at the same time it's the focus blast of flying attacks dealing a lot of damage for the 30% chance it misses (assuming you're not in the rain). There really aren't many 30%-50% confusion attacks, most are 10-20 or 100%.

 

[Wobbyble]

idk, some of these attacks are kind of good. Signal beam is fairly decent giving spare coverage and only has 10% confusion. Hurricane is bad for it's confusion but at the same time it's the focus blast of flying attacks dealing a lot of damage for the 30% chance it misses (assuming you're not in the rain). There really aren't many 30%-50% confusion attacks, most are 10-20 or 100%.

"I'm all for banning moves that solely causes confusion on the basis it's a dice roll you cannot control and subjected on the receiving side without suffering consequences."
soley

 

[haunter]

I agree with you on this, at least. This is absolutely ridiculous. Trying to navigate this thread and make arguments is becoming more and more difficult.

I propose that there be two threads: one in which the higher-ups talk and one in which anyone can talk. The higher-ups can check this thread for progress, but it shouldn't have any voting power.

For the record, it was a private (badgeholders only) forum version of this thread that, for the most part, led us to post a public one. Higher ups have already expressed their opinion on the topic. We just wanted to also get input from the userbase, even though this thread has turned into a cesspool quickly.

Let's cut with the drama, please. I see people talking like we're going to ban everything when, right now, we're just considering the POSSIBILITY of taking measures to nerf this, undoubtedly uncompetitive, strategy known as SwagPlay.

 

[nyttyn]

imo it seems like the move Swagger is what's causing all of these woes, in combination with Foul Play, Ditto, and confusion self-hitting damage. And seeing as how most of the Swagger users already have a need for speed, it seems more prudent to me to simply ban the move Swagger outright instead of doing any complex banning shit, especially since Swagger is used by like maybe one mon outside of swagplay. otherwise slower teams might still get shit on by SwagPlay.

also on the note of cesspools: this is literally the dumbest thread i've read all month, and i am including mega big chill in that month. please stop bringing up jokes, memes, and bad arguments, even if you are just trying to 'counter-troll'. all it's doing is shitting up the thread more.

 

[ItoI6]

http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/o553/ItoI6/G04GwtY_zps93a38f81.png

I hit a nice peak using a swagplay team. I can't tell you how many times I've been in a completely lost game before I land a swagger on a sweeper, and proceed to faceroll an entire offensive team through confusion hax. It's a very solid matchup against most all offensive teams.

When you use a partial swagplay team vs Stall, it forces swagplay counters like chansey and rotom-w to come in, and that gives a free setup to dangerous stuff like mega-mawile and lucario. What makes swagplay useful against even stall teams, is that when theyre sitting there confused and hoping to pp stall you out or something, they only have a 50% chance to react on whatever your switchin is. A well built swagger team is NOT deadweight against stall, it can force switches, and if they want to stay in then their current pokemon has to endure a coinflip every time it wants to move.

imo the two best swagger pokemon are definitely klefki and thundurus-i, and they have ways of getting around commonly listed swagplay counters.

Klefki has access to toxic orb Switcheroo, which completely wrecks rotom-w, magic bounce, and chansey switchins. It doesn't matter if aromatherapy or natural cure cures the poison, the toxic orb makes it so that the status effect always comes back, and ensures they cannot stay in to handle the swag. Klefki also has an excellent defensive typing, and has decent defensive stats that make it stand apart from the rest of the frail prankster pokemon.

Thundurus-i is unlike most other prankster pokemon because it actually has a solid offensive presence. pokemon like gliscor and xatu get lured into thundurus to take a swagger, and then get destroyed by an offensive set like tbolt/hp ice/sub/swag. With access to knock off and toxic as well, its very difficult to find a defensive switchin when every offensive switch gets swaggered.

It is not as simple as slapping one swagplay counter onto a team and having that deal with the whole issue. If your counter gets eliminated from a surprise set like that ^ theres really nothing you can do except pray you hit through the swag throughout the rest of the match. The odds of the opponent breaking through swagger are absolutely terrible as well, its not as simple as winning one 50-50 and taking out the swag user. You have to win MULTIPLE 50-50s in a row, because that swag player is definitely going to be using sub on every turn. Confusion itself is just amazing in the current meta as well. Swagger klefki/thundurus practically soft-counter aegislash because of his sword/shield mechanics, makes mega-pinsir afraid to ever mega-evo, and turn every non-scarf physical sweeper into a threat to their own team once ditto comes in.

idk how i feel about swagplay getting banned, but it is not as simple to counter as some people are making it out to be in this thread. The only times I ever felt like I had an unwinnable matchup were against something like a mega-venu/chansey/gliscor team, and even then i still had some counterplay available. Also to people suggesting stuff like numel and safeguard, im sorry but a good swagplay team is going to have other threats that will walk all over you if you try and pull gimmicks like that lol

 

[Chaosreaver]

"I'm all for banning moves that solely causes confusion on the basis it's a dice roll you cannot control and subjected on the receiving side without suffering consequences."
soley

I think it's swagger in particular that is the problem in that it ups the opponent's attack and leaves it vulnerable to Foul Play. Something like Confuse Ray, on the other hand, would hardly be as broken. imo ban the move Swagger and be done with it.

Foul Play is not broken with Prankster
T-Wave is not broken with Prankster (albeit annoyingly good)
Confuse Ray would hardly be broken with Prankster

I don't think Prankster is the issue, I don't think Parafusion is the issue, and I don't think Foul Play is the issue.
The issue is Swagger.
Swagger by itself isn't horribly broken but because of the other moves it becomes a force that's hard to take out.
Swagger is also an issue when paired alongside ditto for the reason of copying the opponent's stat bonuses after they finally manage to kill your FoulPlay user. The strategy isn't even 'gimmick' at that point so much as 'incredibly reliable'. It's a broken strategy, it's a good strategy, but banning swagger is the easiest way to remedy it.

 

[fleurdyleurse]

I think it's swagger in particular that is the problem in that it ups the opponent's attack and leaves it vulnerable to Foul Play. Something like Confuse Ray, on the other hand, would hardly be as broken. imo ban the move Swagger and be done with it.

Foul Play is not broken with Prankster
T-Wave is not broken with Prankster (albeit annoyingly good)
Confuse Ray would hardly be broken with Prankster

I don't think Prankster is the issue, I don't think Parafusion is the issue, and I don't think Foul Play is the issue.
The issue is Swagger.
Swagger by itself isn't horribly broken but because of the other moves it becomes a force that's hard to take out.
Swagger is also an issue when paired alongside ditto for the reason of copying the opponent's stat bonuses after they finally manage to kill your FoulPlay user. The strategy isn't even 'gimmick' at that point so much as 'incredibly reliable'. It's a broken strategy, it's a good strategy, but banning swagger is the easiest way to remedy it.

See, Swagger w/o Prankster isn't broken per say, but Swagger with Prankster is, in that your Swagger almost always moves first, leading to the confusion being able to work almost all the time.

 

[Hiddenfreezer]

Wait so people @Itol6 have advanced strategies, well build teams and good ideas with swagger? How the fuck is this noobish and uncompetitive?

 

[Jojobobo]

To be a massive hypocrite and entirely 180 on my previous stance, I now think that Swagger should be banned on Prankster users. It's troubling that my team, which has contingencies against SwagPlay (Hydration Rain Dance Manaphy, Volt Absorb Thundurus-T with Rain Dance and Thunder - no Prankster will like to take a perfect accuracy STAB Thunder), nearly got taken out due to luck - see below:

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-91609342

Having said that, I think only Swagger should be banned. ParaFusion with Foul Play is annoying on a Prankster, but it doesn't have half the sting in it's tail without the attack stat boosts - and I think this is enough to make the strategy fall out of popular usage. I guess the reason why I've changed my stance is that when you make a contingency for SwagPlay and it fails you it's really irritating - no team should be able to so easily bypass somewhat dedicated counters.