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

[lucariomaster2]

How the hell is counter-play and counter-counterplay anti-competitive then? This is the definition of fun to me, learning deeper about this game and developing stronger strategies on all sides.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by that? I don't believe there are any hard counters to SwagPlay that are still viable if facing a normal team.

The main argument isn't whether or not there are counters; the main argument is that it takes no skill to use. In a battle between two players, you would expect the more skilled of the two to win most of the time, right? But if SwagPlay is used, skill becomes irrelevant. It completely takes away the aspect of skill from the battle, instead rewarding whoever wins the coinflip. Additionally, there's nothing that the person playing against SwagPlay can do, since Prankster gives priority to Swagger. To quote the OP...

Uncompetitive game aspects (or strategies) are those that take away autonomy (control of the game's events), take it out of the hands of player's decisions.

This strategy does just that, taking the fate of the battle out of the hands of both players and placing it into the hands of the random number generator. Although it is true that a team of 6 SwagPlay mons can be defeated through endless switching, a competent SwagPlay team does make the game entirely based on luck. Switching can't be done because there are hazards on your side, but if you stay in, you can't actually do anything; it just becomes "press the button and pray you can attack that turn". And did you choose to take this risk? No; it was forced upon you, and there's nothing you can do about it. SwagPlay, in a nutshell, requires no skill at all to use, instead making the whole match "press button, hope you get lucky, repeat".

Prankster alone? Fine. Klefki is an amazing screens and spikes setter because of Prankster.
Swagger alone? Fine. Taunt and VoltTurn stops it cold.
Prankster and Swagger together? The combination of the two is extremely uncompetitive.

Wouldn't you rather the winner of a tournament or the person at the top of the ladder be somebody with honest skill instead of somebody who got lucky with coinflips? The combination of Prankster and Swagger must be banned.

 

[Sinning]

Then why don't you respond to my original posts on why higher-level statistics applied to this game only makes it deeper?

http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...ompetitive-in-op.3500620/page-64#post-5271296

Smogon is supposed to be the premier Pokemon Battling site. A little bit of advanced probability should not be scaring you guys off.

Here's the thing about Prankster Swag: it is a strategy that breaks Heavy Offense teams. No one can deny that. Statistically, high attack, low defense creatures lose to confusion. But then the solution is to evolve the metagame, adapt to new changes. Don't just ban something because you don't understand it.

There is beautiful math here that can describe what is going on, which can describe and predict with outstanding accuracy the situation 5, 6, 7+ turns ahead. Prankster Swag is such a simple strategy that it boils down to a math equation... Negative Binomial Distributions.

This topic only shows me people who are too scared to perform the calculations to see what does work, and what doesn't work. Thats why I'm against the ban. Now is a time to flex probability and your mental models, and flex them to the new metagame.

Its not "luck", its but one more monkey wrench into the giant probability problem that is the game of Pokemon.

You complain about misinformed posters getting in the way of our discussion, and then you resort back to talking about statistics. Come on, man. You're an actually intelligent poster, and I know you can contribute to this discussion.

This is not a problem that can be solved through use of objective reasoning. We can not quantify competitiveness or uncompetitiveness. Providing statistics and damage calculations of sets tailored specifically to counter this tactic is not proving anything about the subject at hand - the competitiveness (or lack thereof) of the Swag Play strategy.


"Uncompetitive game aspects (or strategies) are those that take away autonomy (control of the game's events), take it out of the hand's of player's decisions."

This is the point we are arguing here. We are not arguing whether equations can explain Swag Play - you have proven that statistics can help understand how Swag Play works. We are here to discuss whether the strategy takes away autonomy or not. And it absolutely does.

You may be able to understand how Swag Play through your statistics. Does this change the fact that if I were to use it against you, that your fate would be left up to chance? No, it does not. Therefore, even with great understanding, your turns, and the way you play the game, are still dictated by this strategy because you are being given (or denied) a turn through chance. That is removal of autonomy, and according to the definition laid out in the OP and quoted above, is uncompetitive, and warrants a ban.

 

[Shion SinX]

I think a "simple" complex ban of "Paralysis + Confusion" (not limited to Thunder Wave + Swagger) would be the way to go.

If you ban only a combination of moves but not other combos that lead to the same purpose (not only that, but exactly the same status combination) people will just change to another mons to have the same strategy, and we will be banning another combo, and again, and again.

Banning the status combination prevents this option without being limited to what is trend right now.

 

[fenyxofshadows]

This strategy does just that, taking the fate of the battle out of the hands of both players and placing it into the hands of the random number generator. Although it is true that a team of 6 SwagPlay mons can be defeated through endless switching, a competent SwagPlay team does make the game entirely based on luck. Switching can't be done because there are hazards on your side, but if you stay in, you can't actually do anything; it just becomes "press the button and pray you can attack that turn".

The combination of Prankster and Swagger must be banned.

The fact that you can declare a Swag Play team to be 'competent', and that the one example you're using as a competent team has only 2 members who abuse the strategy, clearly means that the player using the Swag Play team has some sense of skill. They know what they are doing, how to counter their counters, and they know that you hate it. Your team is countered flat as a heavy offense team, just as your Kyurem counters any stall team, even the best played ones, completely flat. Isn't it more uncompetitive to have absolutely no chance to win due to a single monster, and to have the community support this single monster rather than an entire style of gameplay?

If you ban Swagger (or even Prankster + Swagger; this is not inherently the problem as you can simply use a very fast monster rather than Prankster and still only fear priority moves) for simply causing the opponent to give up free turns on the flip of a coin, there is a legitimate argument that Thunder Wave, for causing the opponent to give up free turns on the roll of a 4 sided die rather than by outplaying the opponent, and the ability to fish for these free turns provided, is similarly uncompetitive, regardless of the 'intended' purpose of Paralysis.

The combination of Swagger (not Confusion in general, just Swagger), and Foul Play, for combining powerful unresisted attacks, attack boosting, and causing the opponent to give up free turns (and fishing with Substitute to make it consistent just like any other "real" strategy) is the problem. A Swag Play team will simply be unable to do major damage without Foul Play. Foul Play is unable to do major damage without Swagger. Parafusion, in and of itself, is a legitimate stun strategy much akin to Paraflinch.


Similarly to Stealth Rocks, though, I think we should allow the metagame to evolve. Just to piss you off.

 

[Sinning]

I think a "simple" complex ban of "Paralysis + Confusion" (not limited to Thunder Wave + Swagger) would be the way to go.

If you ban only a combination of moves but not other combos that lead to the same purpose (not only that, but exactly the same status combination) people will just change to another mons to have the same strategy, and we will be banning another combo, and again, and again.

Banning the status combination prevents this option without being limited to what is trend right now.

I disagree completely. Confuse Ray is vastly different than swagger due to accuracy of the moves and also swagger's boost of attack.

 

[Exxodus]

Here's the thing about Prankster Swag: it is a strategy that breaks Heavy Offense teams. No one can deny that. Statistically, high attack, low defense creatures lose to confusion. But then the solution is to evolve the metagame, adapt to new changes. Don't just ban something because you don't understand it.

I'm all for new and creative ideas in Pokemon, this is a game that has the potential to do this. When you try a new team, more often then not, you build it to counter/check the top threats of the tier and, at the same time, to your liking. I have seen your post and honestly you have a very sound reasoning, and are a very intelligent poster. However, in the time that I have been posting here, I have yet to see a team/Pokemon Set that makes SwagPlay struggle. Maybe that might even be impossible, but you said yourself that we must adapt to new changes. And so I ask you, let us come up with new and creative ideas to counter SwagPlay. If anyone has any ideas (viable, as in no Numel lol) I'm sure we would all like to hear them.

 

[Sinning]

I'm all for new and creative ideas in Pokemon, this is a game that has the potential to do this. When you try a new team, more often then not, you build it to counter/check the top threats of the tier and, at the same time, to your liking. I have seen your post and honestly you have a very sound reasoning, and are a very intelligent poster. However, in the time that I have been posting here, I have yet to see a team/Pokemon Set that makes SwagPlay struggle. Maybe that might even be impossible, but you said yourself that we must adapt to new changes. And so I ask you, let us come up with new and creative ideas to counter SwagPlay. If anyone has any ideas (viable, as in no Numel lol) I'm sure we would all like to hear them.

There is no reason to do that. He's provided some cool sets earlier, most notably slowbro, chansey, and sylveon. The discussion of counters is so irrelevant though, guys. Counters exist to everything, however this does not change the fact that things deserve to be removed from the game. All we're here to discuss is competitive versus uncompetitive. The OP mentions nothing about counters. They are irrelevant to the discussion at hand. It's honestly tiring to have to explain this over and over again.

 

[fenyxofshadows]

There is no reason to do that. He's provided some cool sets earlier, most notably slowbro, chansey, and sylveon. The discussion of counters is so irrelevant though, guys. Counters exist to everything, however this does not change the fact that things deserve to be removed from the game. All we're here to discuss is competitive versus uncompetitive. The OP mentions nothing about counters. They are irrelevant to the discussion at hand. It's honestly tiring to have to explain this over and over again.

Kyurem-B is uncompetitive. It prevents an entire style of gameplay and takes away the autonomy of the players of that style.

 

[Sinning]

Kyurem-B is uncompetitive. It prevents an entire style of gameplay and takes away the autonomy of the players of that style.

Absolutely not.

If anything it promotes a balanced approach to team building, rather than allowing players to just play a team of passive mons in order to stall out the game. It does not prevent an entire style of play just because it may crush it. It in no way removes an opponent's ability to play against it, nor does it at any point turn the game into a coin flip. There is nothing about kyurem that includes autonomy, and thus, does not match our definition of uncompetitive.

Try harder.

 

[fenyxofshadows]

Absolutely not.

If anything it promotes a balanced approach to team building, rather than allowing players to just play a team of passive mons in order to stall out the game. It does not prevent an entire style of play just because it may crush it. It in no way removes an opponent's ability to play against it, nor does it at any point turn the game into a coin flip. There is nothing about kyurem that includes autonomy, and thus, does not match our definition of uncompetitive.

Try harder.

Absolutely not.

If anything, SwagKey promotes a balanced approach to team building, rather than allowing players to just play a team of sweepers in order to swiftly crush opposing foes. It does not prevent an entire style of play just because it may crush it. It in no way removes an opponent's ability to out-predict it, nor does it at any point turn the game into solitaire. There is nothing about SwagKey that includes a guaranteed victory, and thus, does not match a proper definition of uncompetitive.

Try harder.

 

[Yuelia]

Kyurem-B is uncompetitive. It prevents an entire style of gameplay and takes away the autonomy of the players of that style.

As I've said before, "broken" and "uncompetitive" are not the same thing. Not only does Swagplay not guarantee a win, it's inconsistent by its very nature; the problem isn't its sheer power, the problem is the fact that it transforms skill-based play into praying to the Random Number Goddess.

Also, if you want to argue for Kyurem-B being broken, there's a time and a place for that, which is not in this thread. Back when we discussed banning Mega Gengar, we didn't try to make the case that the presence of Mega Kangaskhan negated the arguments in favor of banning it, even though the latter was (arguably) the more broken of the two.

 

[fenyxofshadows]

As I've said before, "broken" and "uncompetitive" are not the same thing. Not only does Swagplay not guarantee a win, it's inconsistent by its very nature; the problem isn't its sheer power, the problem is the fact that it transforms skill-based play into praying to the Random Number Goddess.

Also, if you want to argue for Kyurem-B being broken, there's a time and a place for that, which is not in this thread. Back when we discussed banning Mega Gengar, we didn't try to make the case that the presence of Mega Kangaskhan negated the arguments in favor of banning it, even though the latter was (arguably) the more broken of the two.

I'm using it as an example of a monster breaking a style of gameplay entirely, and you cannot argue that Kyurem-B does not completely destroy Stall teams, even with reasonable consideration to countering it. It's just that Swagplay breaks the style of gameplay that this forum likes, rather than the style they hate.

 

[Legitimate Username]

Alright, I've been intending to steer clear of this thread for a long time due to how immensely low quality it is, but whatever. Wall of text, commence.

At first I was pretty opposed to a ban, a lot of the reason being that Swagger, in theory, does not completely take control away from the opponent. For example, we have Moody, OHKO moves, and Evasion banned. But why aren't accuracy lowering moves banned? The reason is simple: the added luck factor can be easily negated by switching out. While Moody could leave you helpless against Substitute/Protect spam, nothing can be done against Evasion except phaze, and OHKO moves are just plain dumb, accuracy lowering isn't nearly as threatening due to the fact that players can effortlessly fight against it.

Initially, Swagger appears to be in the same situation, as confusion is also negated by switching. However, this isn't quite as much the case in practice. The opponent has absolutely nothing to lose by hitting the switch-in with Swagger again, recreating the 50/50. In addition, whether the free turn generated by the switch was taken advantage of with a Thunder Wave, Substitute, or Foul Play, the Swagger user is able to maintain his advantage of a 50% free turn chance, or even improve it if they manage to set up a substitute.

I didn't think that this was really much of a big problem, as I felt that the Swagger user wasn't necessarily playing to an overall advantage here. I've faced it on the ladder a couple of times, and when I lost, I never really felt like I was robbed by a cheap strategy. Rather, it was more like losing due to an untimely Hydro Pump miss or something, more along the lines of "If full confusion didn't activate for ONE extra turn, I would have won. Oh well." Essentially, the hax doesn't seem any more likely to fall upon the player going against Swagger than the one using it. For example, if a strong Substitute user manages to get a couple of free turns, that could be the end.

It was the definition of "uncompetitive" posted earlier that made me change my mind about this. Contrary to what I initially believed, Prankster Swagger does in fact remove control over the match from the victim it is used against, despite the fact that switching out removes the confusion status. Outside of getting excessively lucky with 50% hit chances or running gimmicks like Contrary Shuckle with Rest, one player will be following the Swagger/Thunder Wave/Substitute/Foul Play formula, while the other will be blindly hoping that their Pokémon will get a free turn to get off a hit. This fits the "uncompetitive" definition perfectly.

I'm actually only neutral to a ban now, I still believe that there are some favorable arguments against a ban. But I'd rather not list them, since it'll only spark arguments about things that I don't really care to argue about. Rather, I want to talk about why a full ban on Swagger is thoroughly unecessary. I'm going to start by going through the different things that support Swagger and how they affect it (I don't know why there are some that want Swagger/Foul Play combination banned, come on people that makes no sense).

How would the strategy work without Thunder Wave?
Essentially, no different. Thunder Wave has the great ability to lower move chances from 1/2 to 3/8, while also letting the Prankster user hit first with Foul Play. It's also permanent, adding extra punishment to the opponent for switching. However, without Thunder Wave on the set, opponents don't really have any more options than they normally would. It's still a matter of "switch out and take another Swagger or stay in and hope to actually hit the opponent". While the odds of winning with Swagger would be somewhat lower, the strategy is no less uncompetitive without Thunder Wave.

How would the strategy work without Foul Play?
Foul Play is an important part of the set, allowing Swagger users to hit their opponents for massive damage thanks to a boosted Attack stat. But like Thunder Wave, it's not so essential that removing it will alter the uncompetitiveness of the strategy. If Klefki needs to run Draining Kiss over Foul Play, it'll certainly be hitting for a lot less damage on its free turns. But this doesn't give the opponent any more ability to fight the strategy. They still have to deal with immobility for 5 out of 8 turns, chip damage from hitting themselves in confusion, and the opponent hiding behind a Substitute. Foul Play is not essential to the strategy.

How would the strategy work without Substitute?
This is where things get a little more interesting. Substitute is one of the things that makes Swagger so effective at what it does. While a 3/8 chance to move isn't great, you certainly don't want to give something like a Garchomp a single chance to get lucky and start slamming things with Earthquake. Substitute is how the free turns generated can be spent, allowing Swagger users to dodge otherwise deadly attacks when the dice don't roll in their favor. However, Substitute is VERY obviously not the core of the problem here, having near-infinite uses outside of this stupid gimmick. I don't think I need to convince anyone that any potential ban involving Substitute would be a terrible idea.

How would the strategy work without Prankster?
Simply put, it wouldn't work at all. The opponent can now freely switch out to just about ANYTHING that can outspeed and KO the Prankster. Sure, they can just use Thunder Wave on the switch-in, or set up a Substitute, but that doesn't mean much. Spreading paralysis is an absolutely legitimate strategy, and such a set would simply use Swagger as a way of attempting to pseudo-phaze.

One argument I absolutely hate seeing is "Swagger has no use in the metagame, no harm in banning it. It's better than a complex ban anyways." This is flawed for two reasons:
-Swagger without Prankster does NOT fit the definition of "uncompetitive", as it doesn't force players into an uncontrollable situation. Rather, as demonstrated before, there is nothing that keeps the opponent from being able to fight back. Swagger alone boasts the same amount of uncompetitiveness as accuracy-lowering moves, or 60% flinch spammers. Fighting back is possible, through either switching, or using a bulky Air Slash/Iron Head resist.
-Bans should only take place when absolutely necessary. Banning Swagger alone is absolutely unecessary. In this case, a complex ban has the advantages of removing the source of the problem without taking away what is, believe it or not, a somewhat viable move capable of pseudo-phazing and buying free turns. As gimmicky as the Ditto strategy is, it's still viable as well. If Swagger isn't inherently uncompetitive, then there's no reason at all to ban it.

Overall stance: Either ban Prankster Swagger, or don't ban anything (I didn't argue that in this post, but it's still half of my opinion and I'd be fine with either). Banning Swagger alone is a terrible idea, learn to live with hax already.

 

[blitzlefan]

Kyurem-B is uncompetitive. It prevents an entire style of gameplay and takes away the autonomy of the players of that style.

I don't know why poor users keep bringing up Kyurem-B. We established it was possible Kyurem-B was too detrimental for the metagame, and so we ran a suspect test. The community voted to keep Kyurem-B, and therefore the community believes it wasn't broken enough to ban, so STOP BRINGING IT UP. Last time I checked, this was a thread created to discuss ways to deal with SwagPlay, not to bitch about irrelevant topics like Kyurem-B and ParaFlinch. Thank you.

 

[Sinning]

Absolutely not.

If anything, SwagKey promotes a balanced approach to team building, rather than allowing players to just play a team of sweepers in order to swiftly crush opposing foes. It does not prevent an entire style of play just because it may crush it. It in no way removes an opponent's ability to out-predict it, nor does it at any point turn the game into solitaire. There is nothing about SwagKey that includes a guaranteed victory, and thus, does not match a proper definition of uncompetitive.

Try harder.

Ah, you're clever. But see, had you actually taken the time to read the definition of uncompetitive in the OP, you'd have noticed that "guaranteeing victory" is not part of determining whether something is competitive or not. The only thing that matters is whether it removes autonomy or not, and swag play in fact does remove autonomy.

Honestly, you're just posting for the sake of posting at this point. You have not provided any reason to keep this strategy around, and you also haven't refuted any point of mine. You're simply trying to twist words at this point, but you've failed miserably at it, either due to the fact that you can't understand that this thread is to discuss competitiveness and removal of autonomy, or you simply do not care because you're only here to try to use troll logic in an attempt to frustrate users. At any rate, your logic and reasoning here is poor, and your poor trolling attempts wouldn't even fly on 4chan. Please take a step back from this thread and educate yourself before you post again.

 

[Yuelia]

I'm using it as an example of a monster breaking a style of gameplay entirely, and you cannot argue that Kyurem-B does not completely destroy Stall teams, even with reasonable consideration to countering it. It's just that Swagplay breaks the style of gameplay that this forum likes, rather than the style they hate.

I'm not making the case that Kyurem-B doesn't destroy stall; in fact, I think bringing it down from Ubers in the first place was a big mistake on the part of the community, and I'd advocate banning it. But I'm not getting any further into it than that, because as I said, that is simply not the purpose of this thread. If you want to talk about that, make another thread, or use an existing one to make that case. It doesn't change the fact that Swagplay is also broken, for reasons gone over in this thread approximately a thousand times (which, if you look at the post count, isn't even hyperbole).

 

[RandysRage]

Wow, did we really devolve this conversation into bashing my buddy Kyurem-B? Shame on you guys. Yes, Kyurem-B lays waste to stall, but it still has lackluster defensive typing and average speed, not to mention most forms of priority nuke the poor guy. SwagPlay, on the other hand, is a slap to the face of all decent Pokemon battles simply for the absurd luck factor involved. I vote for banning the combination of Swagger+Prankster.

 

[fenyxofshadows]

I don't know why poor users keep bringing up Kyurem-B. We established it was possible Kyurem-B was too detrimental for the metagame, and so we ran a suspect test. The community voted to keep Kyurem-B, and therefore the community believes it wasn't broken enough to ban, so STOP BRINGING IT UP. Last time I checked, this was a thread created to discuss ways to deal with SwagPlay, not to bitch about irrelevant topics like Kyurem-B and ParaFlinch. Thank you.

We bring up Kyurem-B because it is a case of a single monster completely countering the style of stall. Regardless of whether it is or is not broken (I have never once said it was broken, only that completely crushing an entire team based solely on matchup is uncompetitive and unsportsmanlike). It is to draw parallels to Swagplay completely countering a certain style.

Paraflinch, likewise, is to draw parallels to parafusion (which is exactly what the boo boo keys are doing). They are very similar stun strategies.

I've suggested since I've started posting in this thread that the best way to handle Swagplay (I recognize it is a problem, but people calling for Confusion, or even the move Swagger alone and globally, to be banned entirely cause me to go devil's advocate) is to ban the combination of Swagger and Foul Play on a single monster. If you can't handle Swagger by itself, then stop using Thunder Wave or Sleep Powder. If you can't handle Foul Play, you can't handle any reasonably powerful offensive move.

 

[Sinning]

We bring up Kyurem-B because it is a case of a single monster completely countering the style of stall. Regardless of whether it is or is not broken (I have never once said it was broken, only that completely crushing an entire team based solely on matchup is uncompetitive and unsportsmanlike). It is to draw parallels to Swagplay completely countering a certain style.

Paraflinch, likewise, is to draw parallels to parafusion (which is exactly what the boo boo keys are doing). They are very similar stun strategies.

I've suggested since I've started posting in this thread that the best way to handle Swagplay (I recognize it is a problem, but people calling for Confusion, or even the move Swagger alone and globally, to be banned entirely cause me to go devil's advocate) is to ban the combination of Swagger and Foul Play on a single monster. If you can't handle Swagger by itself, then stop using Thunder Wave or Sleep Powder. If you can't handle Foul Play, you can't handle any reasonably powerful offensive move.

I disagree entirely that Kyurem crushing stall teams is anything similar to Swag Play. The thing is, Stall (and this also applies to heavy offense) and any other unbalanced form of play will eventually be steamrolled by something. That's the nature of not playing a balanced sort of team. The difference here is that Kyurem at no point induces an element of chance into the game. Swag Play, however, does. A player who is subjected to Swag Play must flip coins to determine the outcome of their turn. This fits the definition of uncompetitive, and is grounds for removal from the game.

If objective reasoning isn't your cup of tea, I can also provide a subjective argument in the form of comparison. Swag Play is like evasion, in the sense that both induce luck based situations. Evasion does this through increasing a pokemon's chance to avoid attacks. Swag Play does this by reducing an opposing pokemon's ability to move, and in some cases inflicts punishment when the pokemon is allowed to move. Swag Play also makes the move (when finally allowed) very ineffective in most cases through the use of substitute. I believe this strategy is essentially no different than evasion, and should have the same fate.

 

[the-bumper-car]

One argument I absolutely hate seeing is "Swagger has no use in the metagame, no harm in banning it. It's better than a complex ban anyways." This is flawed for two reasons:
-Swagger without Prankster does NOT fit the definition of "uncompetitive", as it doesn't force players into an uncontrollable situation. Rather, as demonstrated before, there is nothing that keeps the opponent from being able to fight back. Swagger alone boasts the same amount of uncompetitiveness as accuracy-lowering moves, or 60% flinch spammers. Fighting back is possible, through either switching, or using a bulky Air Slash/Iron Head resist.
-Bans should only take place when absolutely necessary. Banning Swagger alone is absolutely unecessary. In this case, a complex ban has the advantages of removing the source of the problem without taking away what is, believe it or not, a somewhat viable move capable of pseudo-phazing and buying free turns. As gimmicky as the Ditto strategy is, it's still viable as well. If Swagger isn't inherently uncompetitive, then there's no reason at all to ban it.

Having a Swift Swim Magikarp on a Rain Team was not broken by any means in Gen V, yet it was stilled banned via Aldaron's proposal anyway. Why bother sparing Swagger when it's either the key to degenerate uncompetitive strategy or a much, much inferior phazing move?

 

[fenyxofshadows]

Having a Swift Swim Magikarp on a Rain Team was not broken by any means in Gen V, yet it was stilled banned via Aldaron's proposal anyway. Why bother sparing Swagger when it's either the key to degenerate uncompetitive strategy or a much, much inferior phazing move?

Because banning Swagger globally brings into question other common moves that are heavily RNG-oriented and generate free turns, even if not quite as accurately. I've mentioned Thunder Wave numerous times; it has the 100% accurate primary effect of semi-permanently reducing a non-Ground/Electric target's Speed, but also has the secondary effect of a 25% chance of turn skips for the affected monster, which is not insignificant and can easily decide a game. Why do you think matches in tournaments of any game that involves RNG, be it Pokemon or a CCG like Magic, are played in sets of 3 rather than a single game? It's because you're testing the skill of a player rather than the RNG that can easily screw up single games.

Swift Swim was not banned on Rain teams. It was banned on teams that created their rain through the ability Drizzle (which just so happened to be the most common Rain teams by a long shot). There is a fundamental difference here; Drizzle was an infinite use fire-and-forget Rain ability that automatically triggered on entry. Notice that, now that Drizzle is limited in turns, the ban was not grandfathered. Similarly, there's a fundamental difference in banning the use of Swagger, and banning the use of Swagger in conjunction with a certain other element that makes it abusive.

Either banning certain monsters that use the combination too easily, as was done with Shaymin-S and paraflinch (I still believe Klefki and Thundurus-I are the offenders that brought this to prominence, not Liepard and the such), or banning a combination of move(s) and/or Prankster would be conservative bans that would not call into question the viability of moves such as Thunder Wave while still neutering the problematic combination.

 

[Jukain]

Alright, I've been intending to steer clear of this thread for a long time due to how immensely low quality it is, but whatever. Wall of text, commence.

At first I was pretty opposed to a ban, a lot of the reason being that Swagger, in theory, does not completely take control away from the opponent. For example, we have Moody, OHKO moves, and Evasion banned. But why aren't accuracy lowering moves banned? The reason is simple: the added luck factor can be easily negated by switching out. While Moody could leave you helpless against Substitute/Protect spam, nothing can be done against Evasion except phaze, and OHKO moves are just plain dumb, accuracy lowering isn't nearly as threatening due to the fact that players can effortlessly fight against it.

Initially, Swagger appears to be in the same situation, as confusion is also negated by switching. However, this isn't quite as much the case in practice. The opponent has absolutely nothing to lose by hitting the switch-in with Swagger again, recreating the 50/50. In addition, whether the free turn generated by the switch was taken advantage of with a Thunder Wave, Substitute, or Foul Play, the Swagger user is able to maintain his advantage of a 50% free turn chance, or even improve it if they manage to set up a substitute.

I didn't think that this was really much of a big problem, as I felt that the Swagger user wasn't necessarily playing to an overall advantage here. I've faced it on the ladder a couple of times, and when I lost, I never really felt like I was robbed by a cheap strategy. Rather, it was more like losing due to an untimely Hydro Pump miss or something, more along the lines of "If full confusion didn't activate for ONE extra turn, I would have won. Oh well." Essentially, the hax doesn't seem any more likely to fall upon the player going against Swagger than the one using it. For example, if a strong Substitute user manages to get a couple of free turns, that could be the end.

It was the definition of "uncompetitive" posted earlier that made me change my mind about this. Contrary to what I initially believed, Prankster Swagger does in fact remove control over the match from the victim it is used against, despite the fact that switching out removes the confusion status. Outside of getting excessively lucky with 50% hit chances or running gimmicks like Contrary Shuckle with Rest, one player will be following the Swagger/Thunder Wave/Substitute/Foul Play formula, while the other will be blindly hoping that their Pokémon will get a free turn to get off a hit. This fits the "uncompetitive" definition perfectly.

I'm actually only neutral to a ban now, I still believe that there are some favorable arguments against a ban. But I'd rather not list them, since it'll only spark arguments about things that I don't really care to argue about. Rather, I want to talk about why a full ban on Swagger is thoroughly unecessary. I'm going to start by going through the different things that support Swagger and how they affect it (I don't know why there are some that want Swagger/Foul Play combination banned, come on people that makes no sense).

How would the strategy work without Thunder Wave?
Essentially, no different. Thunder Wave has the great ability to lower move chances from 1/2 to 3/8, while also letting the Prankster user hit first with Foul Play. It's also permanent, adding extra punishment to the opponent for switching. However, without Thunder Wave on the set, opponents don't really have any more options than they normally would. It's still a matter of "switch out and take another Swagger or stay in and hope to actually hit the opponent". While the odds of winning with Swagger would be somewhat lower, the strategy is no less uncompetitive without Thunder Wave.

How would the strategy work without Foul Play?
Foul Play is an important part of the set, allowing Swagger users to hit their opponents for massive damage thanks to a boosted Attack stat. But like Thunder Wave, it's not so essential that removing it will alter the uncompetitiveness of the strategy. If Klefki needs to run Draining Kiss over Foul Play, it'll certainly be hitting for a lot less damage on its free turns. But this doesn't give the opponent any more ability to fight the strategy. They still have to deal with immobility for 5 out of 8 turns, chip damage from hitting themselves in confusion, and the opponent hiding behind a Substitute. Foul Play is not essential to the strategy.

How would the strategy work without Substitute?
This is where things get a little more interesting. Substitute is one of the things that makes Swagger so effective at what it does. While a 3/8 chance to move isn't great, you certainly don't want to give something like a Garchomp a single chance to get lucky and start slamming things with Earthquake. Substitute is how the free turns generated can be spent, allowing Swagger users to dodge otherwise deadly attacks when the dice don't roll in their favor. However, Substitute is VERY obviously not the core of the problem here, having near-infinite uses outside of this stupid gimmick. I don't think I need to convince anyone that any potential ban involving Substitute would be a terrible idea.

How would the strategy work without Prankster?
Simply put, it wouldn't work at all. The opponent can now freely switch out to just about ANYTHING that can outspeed and KO the Prankster. Sure, they can just use Thunder Wave on the switch-in, or set up a Substitute, but that doesn't mean much. Spreading paralysis is an absolutely legitimate strategy, and such a set would simply use Swagger as a way of attempting to pseudo-phaze.

One argument I absolutely hate seeing is "Swagger has no use in the metagame, no harm in banning it. It's better than a complex ban anyways." This is flawed for two reasons:
-Swagger without Prankster does NOT fit the definition of "uncompetitive", as it doesn't force players into an uncontrollable situation. Rather, as demonstrated before, there is nothing that keeps the opponent from being able to fight back. Swagger alone boasts the same amount of uncompetitiveness as accuracy-lowering moves, or 60% flinch spammers. Fighting back is possible, through either switching, or using a bulky Air Slash/Iron Head resist.
-Bans should only take place when absolutely necessary. Banning Swagger alone is absolutely unecessary. In this case, a complex ban has the advantages of removing the source of the problem without taking away what is, believe it or not, a somewhat viable move capable of pseudo-phazing and buying free turns. As gimmicky as the Ditto strategy is, it's still viable as well. If Swagger isn't inherently uncompetitive, then there's no reason at all to ban it.

Overall stance: Either ban Prankster Swagger, or don't ban anything (I didn't argue that in this post, but it's still half of my opinion and I'd be fine with either). Banning Swagger alone is a terrible idea, learn to live with hax already.

"Banning Swagger alone is a terrible idea, learn to live with hax already."

I highly disagree here. How is it any better for a speedy as hell Tornadus-T to go around spamming Swagger than a Prankster user? It achieves the same effect, for the most part. Is the coinflip uncompetitive or not? Because Prankster + Swagger is just a band-aid -- the coinflip caused by Swagger is the issue at fault here. Oh, and I'm tired of this crap:

-Bans should only take place when absolutely necessary. Banning Swagger alone is absolutely unecessary. In this case, a complex ban has the advantages of removing the source of the problem without taking away what is, believe it or not, a somewhat viable move capable of pseudo-phazing and buying free turns. As gimmicky as the Ditto strategy is, it's still viable as well. If Swagger isn't inherently uncompetitive, then there's no reason at all to ban it.

So you're telling me a strategy based around hax and a coinflip is legitimate? We may just have differing views on this, but to me it's clear as day that this is far from legitimate. That's introducing a stupid element of luck to the metagame. Buying free turns because it has a 50/50 chance to make the opponent hurt itself? This is not a strategy that belongs in a competitive metagame.

 

[the-bumper-car]

Because banning Swagger globally brings into question other common moves that are heavily RNG-oriented and generate free turns, even if not quite as accurately. I've mentioned Thunder Wave numerous times; it has the 100% accurate primary effect of semi-permanently reducing a non-Ground/Electric target's Speed, but also has the secondary effect of a 25% chance of turn skips for the affected monster, which is not insignificant and can easily decide a game.

Complex Banning Swagger + Prankster isn't going to stop that question either. This strategy is now under a microscope, and at this point the question should no longer be "Is this a degenerate uncompetitive strategy" but instead what most people are now asking is "What do we need to get rid off to make sure this degeneracy goes away?" Besides, T-Wave, even with Prankster, is useless against TWO(!) whole types of Pokemon (Ground, Electric), two different abilities (Limber and Tangled Feet), in addition to all the other Pokes that are incidentally immune to it thanks to, say, Poison Heal. I doubt any calls for banning Prankster T-wave would be fruitful, but if it does get discussed, why is it wrong?

Swift Swim was not banned on Rain teams. It was banned on teams that created their rain through the ability Drizzle (which just so happened to be the most common Rain teams by a long shot). There is a fundamental difference here; Drizzle was an infinite use fire-and-forget Rain ability that automatically triggered on entry. Notice that, now that Drizzle is limited in turns, the ban was not grandfathered.

Apologies, I meant Swift Swim Magikarp on Drizzle Teams. Doesn't change my point, it was still an innocuous thing that was banned as collateral damage, and nobody complained much about it - if anything, the criticism of Aldaron's proposal was that it didn't go far enough and didn't do enough to stop the real problem.

 

[fenyxofshadows]

"Banning Swagger alone is a terrible idea, learn to live with hax already."

I highly disagree here. How is it any better for a speedy as hell Tornadus-T to go around spamming Swagger than a Prankster user? It achieves the same effect, for the most part. Is the coinflip uncompetitive or not? Because Prankster + Swagger is just a band-aid -- the coinflip caused by Swagger is the issue at fault here. Oh, and I'm tired of this crap:

So you're telling me a strategy based around hax and a coinflip is legitimate? We may just have differing views on this, but to me it's clear as day that this is far from legitimate. That's introducing a stupid element of luck to the metagame. Buying free turns because it has a 50/50 chance to make the opponent hurt itself? This is not a strategy that belongs in a competitive metagame.

Is Thunder Wave not a coinflip? It's just as uncompetitive to use it and force your opponent to lose turns from full paralysis as it is to use Swagger (which removes itself upon switching). Introducing luck into the metagame for a game that is far more similar to Poker than to Chess isn't inherently a bad thing. The strategy of using Swagger, or comparably Yawn, as a phazing move is that the condition is undesirable. If you don't want to try to attack through Confusion, switch out. If you don't want to fall asleep after attacking, switch out. Either way, it generates a setup turn either immediately or in the future. It's far from legitimate to see my monsters get Frozen, yet due to the nature of attacks with a luck-based element to them, it will happen eventually, and I can accept it.

Complex Banning Swagger + Prankster isn't going to stop that question either. This strategy is now under a microscope, and at this point the question should no longer be "Is this a degenerate uncompetitive strategy" but instead what most people are now asking is "What do we need to get rid off to make sure this degeneracy goes away?" Besides, T-Wave, even with Prankster, is useless against TWO(!) whole types of Pokemon (Ground, Electric), two different abilities (Limber and Tangled Feet), in addition to all the other Pokes that are incidentally immune to it thanks to, say, Poison Heal. I doubt any calls for banning Prankster T-wave would be fruitful, but if it does get discussed, why is it wrong?

Apologies, I meant Swift Swim Magikarp on Drizzle Teams. Doesn't change my point, it was still an innocuous thing that was banned as collateral damage, and nobody complained much about it - if anything, the criticism of Aldaron's proposal was that it didn't go far enough and didn't do enough to stop the real problem.

Which is why I never suggested Swagger + Prankster; it's just like using it with high Speed. I'm not certain what will stop the strategy, but it seems that it has only shown up with the right users (Klefki and Thundurus), as it was present and yet ineffective last generation.

Similarly to Own Tempo, monsters that have Limber or Tangled Feet are better off using other abilities in general. Thunder Wave is more fair because there is a counter to it that doesn't require running a suboptimal set, not because of the lesser chances of a luck based aspect which some posters ignore. It would not be a bad thing for Thunder Wave to be discussed, but I do not want to see the precedent set by banning Swagger alone; you can excuse banning any move that either gives free turns inherently or requires fishing for an effect.

Yeah, Swift Swim Magikarp isn't inherently bad, but without being insanely complex with a ban, you can't catch everything without collateral damage. Look at Blaziken in general. UU material without Speed Boost, living Poke-embodiment of Chuck Norris with it. But the monster is banned based on its best set, not on the possibility of lesser sets.

 

[Karxrida]

Is Thunder Wave not a coinflip?

Last time I checked, coins and d4's were completely different things.

Paralysis spreading is a legitimate tactic for lowering a speedy opponent's speed; the 25% chance of a free turn is a bonus for the T-Wave user. Ground types and Electric types are immune and plentiful enough that either can easily be put on a team without being dead weight.

Swagger more or less forces a 50-50 on an opponent with little (if any) counterplay involved when Prankster is added to the equation. All "counters", barring everyone switching to Stall (which is overcentralizing just to counter ONE playstyle), are sub-optimal or just plain stupid to use in OU.