well I'll concede that is a fair enough analysis. I'm still in full support of prankster swagger banned, but I do somewhat see the legitimacy on some sets to pseudo phaze with it
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SwagPlay, evaluating potential bans (basic definition of "uncompetitive" in OP)
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Also 55% of Regigigas used Confuse Ray last month. Infact, Regigagas has been using Confuse Ray for years, and nobody has ever had any problem with it whatsoever. Regigigas is awful, even with a "broken" move.
You're right, Regigigas is a classic example. However, I wanted to only include Pokemon that were at least plausible choices in OU, lest people freak out like they did with the Numel suggestion.
And while I've never tried this, Swagger/Flatter could pair well with Ditto. It's a risky strategy, but Ditto becomes a lot scarier when it copies a physical sweeper at +2.
v Yeah, you used the right term.
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Well-known strategy in SwagPlay already. It is used on better teams alongside 3-4 swagplayers and Mega sweeper as a tertiary (did i use da rite term) win condition.
How can people say swagger is uncompetitive when its one of the most competitive moves? It works in tandem with many things like with sub and swagger combo. Also having ditto as a plan b if swagger fails to KO the boosted pokemon attack then ditto gains the boost and sweeps. That sounds like a genious strategy to me. Swagger and foul play have great synergy as well to call swagger uncompetitive only shows how stupid you guys really are at playing pokemon.
That's like saying gokus spirit bomb is uncompetitive because it takes too much time to prepare the attack but it gets the job done anyways.
If you guys want to ban something so badly and I know you do let's find middle ground here and only allow one prankster pokemon per team. Also confusion clause is here to stay its part of pokemon since red version. There are plenty of ways to beat it which is why it has never been banned before. Wise up everyone.
That's like saying gokus spirit bomb is uncompetitive because it takes too much time to prepare the attack but it gets the job done anyways.
If you guys want to ban something so badly and I know you do let's find middle ground here and only allow one prankster pokemon per team. Also confusion clause is here to stay its part of pokemon since red version. There are plenty of ways to beat it which is why it has never been banned before. Wise up everyone.
Sorry, but you're clueless. "Competitive" encompasses much more than just what's good. Swagger + thunder wave is strong as fuck, that's why this thread exists. That does not make it competitive.
Often times, the most powerful things are very uncompetitive, in a similar vein to "swag play" and things like mega lucario. Mega kangaskhan is powerful, but that does not make it competitive. When something reaches a point to where it is too difficult to counter, it is "broken." This is uncompetitive as it allows one player to completely dominate the game with little input from their side. "Competitive" is not steamrolling your opponent with pure power of your strategy; rather, it is having an even playing field for players to COMPETE on. Swag play prevents interaction between opponents, resulting not in competition, but an unhealthy environment for the game, which makes the gameplay stale and makes people not want to play.
Swagplay stops your opponent from being able to play the game. It always goes first and the only way to counter it is by abusing prankster yourself. Therefore it has no place in the OU metagame, in terms of trying to create the most balanced and most fair kind of metagame.
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I'd like to remind you that the banning discussion is on whether or not it is too luck based, not whether or not it has counters or if it. We are not looking to ban it for being broken or under the overcentralization of the metagame clause. In the OP, the phrase "make games entirely luck reliant" is used. Please make an argument related to luck reliance and whether or not Swagger should be banned as a result.
Removal of agency, although annoying, is a part of life in Pokemon. Paralysis, confusion, and freezing are three examples of where a player's agency is removed. Therefore, removal of agency, by itself, is not a sufficient argument.
I present my previous anti-ban argument and rebuttals: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/swagplay-evaluating-potential-bans.3500620/page-29#post-5263118
I await your response!
Agreed that Swagger isn't a problem outside of Prankster users. The reason that Prankster Swagger is an issue is that it makes a Pokemon near impossible to revenge-kill reliably. Non-Prankster users can be revenge-killed, or, for the defensive users that are difficult to OHKO, they can at least be Taunted, Toxiced etc before you get Swaggered.
On the contrary, why shouldn't we ban a strategy that makes games entirely luck-reliant?
There really is no argument to be made in terms of luck. You paralyze, and then confuse a pokemon. It must pass a 50/50 check in order to "move," and then it must pass another 50/50 check to determine whether it hits itself when it moves or not. That is obviously luck based, hence why I didn't take that route in order to argue my point.
Removal of agency is a good point, and while it is a part of pokemon, it should not be so easily done like swag play is. Thunder wave should not have perfect accuracy. Even if it had will o wisp's accuracy, it would still be infinitely stronger. The ability to completely immobilize an opponent's pokemon through luck based strategies is unfair and uncompetitive. Notice how a move that just outright freezes the opponent doesn't exist. Swagger + thunder wave is not the same as getting frozen off of a 10% chance from ice beam. It is easily accomplished, and makes the game luck based while being an easily recreated situation, unlike an offhand freeze or confusion from ice beam or hurricane, respectably.
Tl;dr - easy removal of agency has no place in the game. It creates a degenerate game state where players win by creating a situation where their opponent doesn't get a turn, which is uncompetitive in the purest sense.
You can't ban something just because it is annoying. It's not overcentralizing and definitely not limiting to choices. It can be played around and even taken advantage of due to the predictability.
Luck is ingrained into the game. The next thing you'll want to do is complex ban No Guard + Dynamicpunch. What a joke. Why even is this strategy under scrutiny?
Luck is ingrained into the game. The next thing you'll want to do is complex ban No Guard + Dynamicpunch. What a joke. Why even is this strategy under scrutiny?
>people saying ban Swagger because it does nothing for the meta
So does Misty Terrain, Safeguard, Pound, Infestation, Acupressure, Power Split etc etc. That's a terrible argument. It doesn't actually try to pinpoint what the problem is. It's scapegoating, and that's simple. Swagger has never, ever been a problem in the five gens it existed. Confuse Ray has never, ever been a problem in the six gens it existed. Now all of a sudden it is? No, that's dumb. The problem isn't with Swagger. The problem isn't with Thunder Wave. The problem isn't with Substitute. The problem isn't even with Prankster. Not like without Prankster Deo-S can't abuse this strategy. So, what IS the problem? Foul Play. The set gains all of its offensive ability from Foul Play. Now, the move isn't broken on its own. It's been used on Umbreon and Mandibuzz and it hasn't proven broken. It's Swagger + Foul play that is. The strategy loses it teeth otherwise, so I suggest that either one of two things happen:
1. Ban the combination of Swagger + Foul Play.
2. Limit the number of Prankster Pokemon one can have on a team to either two, or one.
Those are the only possibilities that make sense from a logical standpoint. I'm personally in favor of the latter. The strategy has never been over centralizing, and even though it is luck based, its the consistency of 5 PFP + Ditto teams that is the problem.
So does Misty Terrain, Safeguard, Pound, Infestation, Acupressure, Power Split etc etc. That's a terrible argument. It doesn't actually try to pinpoint what the problem is. It's scapegoating, and that's simple. Swagger has never, ever been a problem in the five gens it existed. Confuse Ray has never, ever been a problem in the six gens it existed. Now all of a sudden it is? No, that's dumb. The problem isn't with Swagger. The problem isn't with Thunder Wave. The problem isn't with Substitute. The problem isn't even with Prankster. Not like without Prankster Deo-S can't abuse this strategy. So, what IS the problem? Foul Play. The set gains all of its offensive ability from Foul Play. Now, the move isn't broken on its own. It's been used on Umbreon and Mandibuzz and it hasn't proven broken. It's Swagger + Foul play that is. The strategy loses it teeth otherwise, so I suggest that either one of two things happen:
1. Ban the combination of Swagger + Foul Play.
2. Limit the number of Prankster Pokemon one can have on a team to either two, or one.
Those are the only possibilities that make sense from a logical standpoint. I'm personally in favor of the latter. The strategy has never been over centralizing, and even though it is luck based, its the consistency of 5 PFP + Ditto teams that is the problem.
There are attacks that outright sleep the opponent, and they've existed since before the Overcoat/Grass type buff (Admittedly, this is somewhat contained in the Sleep Clause to stop this from destroying a team entirely, but this is far more potent than confusion). Also, similar arguments can be levied against Serene Grace abusers with ParaFlinch, since that is also a very easy removal of agency, which results in a 70% chance at any turn to not move but that is currently not up for discussion as being too luck-based, it is instead a strategy that wins by creating a situation where the opponent doesn't get a turn.
At some point in time, a method's reliability at taking away enemy turns makes it stop being "hax" and actually turn into a legitimate strategy. I maintain that the combination of Substitute + confusion is reliable enough to jump this border. At the same time, it's not nearly as effective Spore spamming, so it doesn't overcentralize the metagame and doesn't need a rule to limit its effectiveness.
Dynamic punch + no guard does not promote an unhealthy game state. It allows for interactivity between players, unlike swagplay. Also, it only results in confusion, which is not deserving of a ban by itself. Confusion in tandem with paralysis, is vastly different though. Your speed is halved, you must pass a 50/50 check just to move, and another 50/50 check to determine whether you hit yourself or your opponent. How is that strategic in any way, and how does it promote competitiveness?
Minor correction: 25/75 check to move and 25% speed.
Part of strategy comes from the valuation of turns. The worst thing that a SwagPlayer can do is Foul Play during your lost turn, which is a rather unique attack because its effectiveness varies so widely based upon the opponent. The opposing player can throw something at the SwagPlayer which takes very little damage from Foul Play, or risk it by throwing something at the enemy that has high attack and can force out the SwagPlayer almost immediately. If using a SD-boosted Mega-Pinsir, the lost turn due to Parafusion is horrifying, because of the massive damage that Mega-Pinsir will take. If using a Chansey, the lost turn due to Parafusion is trivial. The sweet spot lies in Pokemon like Rotom-W, who take a small amount of damage, but also can break a sub and switch in the same turn via Volt Switch.
There's also opportunity of the cost of applying the strategy. My calculations came to the conclusion that, if Swagger hits, the enemy will lose 1 or more turns 76% of the time. The 24% chance that the enemy will NOT lose a turn, though, can basically spell defeat for the SwagPlayer. Every Substitution use results in a net 18.75% loss of health. In the worst case situation, if a SwagPlayer uses 4 Substitutes and the enemy did not hit themselves in confusion, the SwagPlayer loses 75% of their health and is without a sub in a situation where the enemy is no longer confused. Even against a Pokemon with weak attacking stats, they can eliminate the SwagPlayer at this point.
When against a SwagPlayer, you need to evaluate from the perspective that, yes, I will likely lose 1.125 turns to Swagger when the SwagPlayer comes out. All this means is that you need to do more damage to the SwagPlayer than they can do in 1.125 turns to you to win, on average.
If you can manage that, then you will, generally speaking, beat the SwagPlayer.
I believe that this constitutes strategy and a spot in a competitive metagame. The SwagPlayer has to know when their strategy will be ineffective and when to cease (failure to do so would be a suboptimal usage of SwagPlay). The people on the receiving end need to evaluate their options to determine who can best handle the situation.
Paraflinch falls into the same category of this strategy, and should be removed as well. There should be no way to create a situation where your opponent is allowed any less than a 50/50 chance at their turn. While paraflinch and swag play are easily recreated, and are viable "strategies" but are bad for a competitive environment. I suppose I just have a problem with wins that stem from not outplaying your opponent, but rather create a situation where the opponent is simply not allowed to play, and is at times even punished for finally being allowed to pass the RNG for paralysis.
I think we should ban Confusion-inducing moves. Outrage and Petal Dance (and other moves like them) are fine, since they are side effects of some very devastating moves, and balances out the benefits of those moves. But Swagger and Foul Play is ridiculous. Not impossible to get through, but it's frustrating sometimes. Now Cosmic Power + Roost/Moonlight/Rest + Magic Guard + Stored Power. Now THAT'S broken.
I really admire the effort you've put into your analysis, but it is slightly missing the point. Averages do not exist in real life - no individual family has 2.4 children and the same applies here. Put simply, you cannot predict the number of turns you will lose in any given situation, and prediction is the core of what makes competitive Pokemon interesting, so removing the ability to predict is destroying the essence of the game.
There is another flaw with this approach. One widely perceived problem with swagplay is that it allows a bad player a significant chance to beat a much better player which he'd have no chance against if he played in any other way. Even if he is still going against the statistics of luck, that still may be preferable to going against the statistics of skill, and so it enables players to get wins they just don't deserve.
TL;DR: Pokemon is not just raw number-crunching, and cannot be analysed as such.
And this is where the slippery slope begins. First we shout outrage for a Confusion, then soon after it is Paraflinch Strategies, and next it is Paralysis all together. Banning one thing only leads to banning another. The diversity of Pokemon is what makes the game fun. RNG is part of the game. Removing that is removing a key component of the game. It brings unpredictability and excitement to matches. The SwagPlay team may think they are winning, until all of a sudden a Priority Attack like Extreme Speed hits two turns in a row, and then they break free of Confusion. A battle such as that can turn at any given moment, and shouldn't be lamented but enthralled by. I have already given many checks and counters to this strategy. If people just branch out from the same 43 or whatever Pokemon that rest in OU, and look for ways to get around the strategy, the metagame could become extremely diverse and exciting.
As soon as people start designating things as "broken" is when the metagame ceases to become a living and evolving being, and just a dull blend of the same old status quo. That threat has never been a true issue, and neither is SwagPlay if people are just willing to look past their tunnel vision and try to use more Pokemon. If we let the metagame evolve on its own, very reliable counters and counter strategies will begin appearing. But don't stifle this evolution with unnecessary banning and complaining.
Even though I don't have a problem with Prankster users like Sableye and Klefki. I do want to mark a conversation me and a moderator had about Klefki (and inheritently SwagPlay itself):
Me: "On a lighter note, why do you hate Klefki so much. I think he's a barrel of laughs. :-D
Rafael J. Feliciano, Feb 5, 2014 Edit
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"because people only use it for sub / swagger / foul play / Twave which is an uncompetitive and nooby strategy that should be banned from competitive play."
Now at the time I thought that this was a bit overblown but now I see that the newer players are taking this and maining it as their team concept.
My question when reading this forum is: Thunder Wave been around Since Gen I, no problem here. Swagger has been around since Gen II and has never caused a problem. Gen V introduced Prankster and Foul Play and yet, we didn't see the plethora of Sub/Foul Play/Swagger/T-Wave usage that we do now. So what happened this Gen that marked the uptick in this?
To be honest, I believe that Megas have contributed greatly to this, as the power that mons like Charizard-X & Y, Lucario, Gyarados and the like have made the metagame so powerful that other players feel that while the rest of the meta is zigging, some want to zag (or in their case swag)
Another factor that played into this was the fact that mons like Genesect, Deoxys-S and Deoxys-D were brought down to the Uber heavens and allow to swim with the rest of the world and further complicate newer players lives to the point that SwagPlay seemed like a more viable strategy.
However, what makes the SwagPlay a real nuisance is the Hax factor involved. Players complain when an Ice Beam freezes an opponent cause that is something that is simply not predicted. SwagPlay takes prediction out of the game in favor of a game of chance and when the SwagPlay user in question is equipped with Substitute and T-Wave to further increase the odds of not being attacked; they turned a game based on skill and prediction into a game of roulette where every turn, the opponent is hoping to land on "00" (green)
In the end, though all of these factors might be partially to blamed for the uptick in SwagPlay shenanigans, the fact that SwagPlay has such relevance in our current metagame similar to the way the Ability Moody had an effect on the metagame a generation ago, I move that Swagger in conjunction with Prankster be banned (complex banned).
Me: "On a lighter note, why do you hate Klefki so much. I think he's a barrel of laughs. :-D
Rafael J. Feliciano, Feb 5, 2014 Edit
Reply
Subject 18 Fuck Klefki.
Moderator
"because people only use it for sub / swagger / foul play / Twave which is an uncompetitive and nooby strategy that should be banned from competitive play."
Now at the time I thought that this was a bit overblown but now I see that the newer players are taking this and maining it as their team concept.
My question when reading this forum is: Thunder Wave been around Since Gen I, no problem here. Swagger has been around since Gen II and has never caused a problem. Gen V introduced Prankster and Foul Play and yet, we didn't see the plethora of Sub/Foul Play/Swagger/T-Wave usage that we do now. So what happened this Gen that marked the uptick in this?
To be honest, I believe that Megas have contributed greatly to this, as the power that mons like Charizard-X & Y, Lucario, Gyarados and the like have made the metagame so powerful that other players feel that while the rest of the meta is zigging, some want to zag (or in their case swag)
Another factor that played into this was the fact that mons like Genesect, Deoxys-S and Deoxys-D were brought down to the Uber heavens and allow to swim with the rest of the world and further complicate newer players lives to the point that SwagPlay seemed like a more viable strategy.
However, what makes the SwagPlay a real nuisance is the Hax factor involved. Players complain when an Ice Beam freezes an opponent cause that is something that is simply not predicted. SwagPlay takes prediction out of the game in favor of a game of chance and when the SwagPlay user in question is equipped with Substitute and T-Wave to further increase the odds of not being attacked; they turned a game based on skill and prediction into a game of roulette where every turn, the opponent is hoping to land on "00" (green)
In the end, though all of these factors might be partially to blamed for the uptick in SwagPlay shenanigans, the fact that SwagPlay has such relevance in our current metagame similar to the way the Ability Moody had an effect on the metagame a generation ago, I move that Swagger in conjunction with Prankster be banned (complex banned).
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We've been over this a million times! Swagplay is annoying, but its a lot more than that, its unhealthy. The small chance that you can win a match just from luck is not productive because it destabilizes the idea that this is a skill based meta game.
Also, that slippery slope idea has been brought up every ban discussion so far, and its NEVER affected the ban.
Things like crits and missing are fine because the community agrees those are part of the game and are acceptable variations of the skill centrality. Also, they're part of the game mechanics, and we won't change those for any reason.
Dynamic Punch isn't a problem either because there are easy ways to avoid playing by your opponent's rules of confusion. Priority swagger has no such avoidance techniques, so it forces people to flip a coin on whether they get to move or not, and as such is too luck dependent to be considered allowable.
This I disagree with because there are easy, realistic ways for your opponent to avoid being paraflinched. Also, even if one pokemon is taken down, both paraflinchers can be pretty reliably revenge killed. Swagplay has neither of those cons
That's a consistent perspective. I understand your points.
I concede that SwagPlay can let a less skilled player beat a more skilled one, but I think that's true for many other legitimate strategies because of crits/misses, unlucky status effects, etc, etc. I also concede that you can make a situation where the opponent is not allowed to play -- statistically, it's guaranteed to sometimes make that happen.
Despite that, I think that there are enough competitive merits to SwagPlay to warrant it staying around (in more detail in #1029 on this page). I believe it is consistent enough to use as SwagPlay user and I also believe that the correct counter play strategies are valid and will work consistently enough.
I think we have a bit of difference in opinion on what's good enough to be competitive, so I think we'll agree to disagree.
You're right that you cannot predict the number of confusion turns. I don't believe that SwagPlay eliminates prediction from the game, though. Most SwagPlay users follow the formula (or very close to it). If anything, this makes them very predictable. That said, because of the mechanics, there's always the chance that you can lose an insane amount of turns in a row, but I don't think it's common enough if you're trying to counter the strategy effectively.
On the micro, you're completely correct about allowing bad players to beat a much better player. You can very easily dig up replays where players using a formula can beat more skilled players on the ladder. I'm not convinced that this is any worse than the current "hax" allowed in competitive play, however. I believe that I've shown that SwagPlay is relatively consistent, and that strategies that beat SwagPlay are relatively consistent, although both are not perfect. I think the real argument belongs in that domain -- analysis of both the strategy AND the most common switch-ins to the counter like Rotom-W to determine how consistent both are, and what is the allowable amount of consistency.
Given the raw amount of iterated turns that a SwagPlayer typically induces, I believe we can analyze it with number crunching -- in fact, that may be the only way to truly figure out if it is consistent enough to be considered competitive. Subjective analysis has its place, but it gives us nothing concrete to work with.
However, ladders are indeed number crunching of probabilities. The players with the highest scores are those who tend to win, rather than those that will always win against players with lower scores. In tournaments, likewise, we have matches were the best among a number of battles is the winner. If the fact that a better player sometimes loses were not admissible or unexistent, there would be no need to do 2/3 matches.
I agree that the slippery slope is an insufficient argument for the anti-ban crew.
(a) I believe that many matches without Swagger can be won by just luck, but do not destabilize the idea that it is a skill-based game. I believe empirically we can assume that a certain degree of luck is considered allowable.
(b) Confusion, paralysis, and Prankster are all game mechanics. I contend that they fall within the acceptable variation of skill centrality as per the reliability in http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/swagplay-evaluating-potential-bans.3500620/page-11#post-5260897 .
(c) Abilities such as Magnet Pull have no avoidance techniques and can cause 100% lose situations against certain steel types. The lack of avoidance techniques is not grounds for a ban.
(d) I believe that my calculations show that SwagPlay falls within acceptable luck dependency ranges by have a higher reliability than Focus Blast or Sleep Powder.
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