Baton Pass - its role in the metagame and possible solutions to nerf full Baton Pass chains

[QuickBH]

Has any of you tried to use Weezing with Clear Smog and Fire Blast/Flamethrower?, It would destroy Scoilopede and Clear Smog can get past Magic Bounce due to it being an attack and also gets rid of all stat boosts (Espeon still kicks Weezing ass though....)_

Gengar also gets Clear Smog through Breeding

Gengar can't afford to get Clear Smog, he's a frail sweeper who either uses his coverage to kill or destiny bond and by putting Clear Smog on Gengar you're basically screwing yourself on every single team minus BP. Gengar along with Weezing also get their asses kicked by Espeon.

 

[WebBowser]

I still think that folks are using the wrong mentality on how to break baton pass chains. BP teams right now are structured around handling every non-offensive check and counter you can throw at it. So, to help facilitate discussion, I am going to use common (and maybe a few uncommon ones too) offensive pokemon in the OU metagame and show how they beat baton pass teams if you lead with them.

Example one: Thundy-I

I will be using this set to demonstrate:

Thundurus (M) @ leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 Spd / 4 SDef / 252 SAtk
Modest/Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Dark Pulse
- Nasty Plot
- Substitute

This set is not particularly optimized to fight BP, those sets would have taunt, however, I claim that this set will win against most members BP teams as long as you lead with it.

Situation one: enemy leads with scolo

You have 3 options, 1 is to predict the protect and setup NP, 2 is to setup subs, and 3 is to call the bluff and attack. No matter what you do, you are in a favorable position. I will be focusing moostly on the unfavorable situations.

Unfavorable situation 1: you attack and he protects: no big worries, just hit him next turn.
Unfavorable situation 2: you setup NP and he subs: kind of bad, but elec immunity is uncommon in BP teams, just hit him next turn with tbolt.
Unfavorable situation 3: you setup NP and he uses Iron Defense: enjoy 2 shotting whoever comes out
Unfavorable situation 4: He BPs to smeargle: setup subs and laugh, as smeargle can't do nothing
Unfavorable situation 5: He swaps to sylveon: Well, if you have an NP up, just hit her, if you have subs up, NP and then hit her, otherwise you have been outplayed and need to swap.

Btw, at +0, thundy-I 2 shots scolopede with ease. At +2 he one shots. Sylveon can be significantly weakened or killed by +2 thundy (~30% chance), at which point any priority can revenge kill and end the chain.

The only lead that really counter's thundy-I is sylveon, the rest thundy-I can immediately threaten and/or setup on. Sylveon will likely either hyper voice or setup a calm mind, making it practically death fodder for any physical mon (like scizor)

Taunt thundy-I is even better. Just spam taunt until they swap to sylveon or espeon. If they swap to espeon, dark pulse it. If they swap to sylveon, swap to your sylveon counter, preferably a hard hitting phys mon (so that you can nail their inevitable swap in).

Example 2: Mega-Mawile:

Just attack (use subs on turn 1 if you are running it). No matter what they swap to, their swap in WILL take heavy damage from iron head. There is no prediction needed, just use an attack that threatens out whatever is in front of you. To illustrate this, here's the worst case scenario.

Zapdos takes this on swap in.

252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Iron Head vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zapdos: 99-117 (25.7 - 30.4%) -- 0.9% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

and this on every turn it stays out

252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zapdos: 222-262 (57.8 - 68.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

If it tries to do anything but roost, it will die. The best it can do is 60-ish% with heat wave (tbolt does less then 50%).

Everything else is cleanly 2hko'd/ohko'd by one of two megamaws stab moves.

252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Iron Head vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Scolipede: 192-226 (59.2 - 69.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

They cannot get any boosts other then speed, because the moment they do try to get any kind of boost, they die.

The only thing you cannot beat without subs is smeargle, who gets taken down to 1 hp on swap in. Just run a sleep absorber for this.

Example 3: CB talonflame

Just BB them to death. If they hard swap to zapdos, you get to do this

252+ Atk Choice Band Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zapdos: 93-111 (24.2 - 28.9%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

and then swap to your specially based wallbreaker. If they counter lead, just u-turn out. TFlame 1v1s every lead except zapdos with ease.

Example 4: mega hera

If you want a full stop to BP teams, look no further then here. Mega hera outduels every single possible BP lead (he does take a heavy hit from sylv though, but he still wins) and can 2hko every one of them with rock blast, meaning that none of them can swap in on him. The only way for him to lose is for the opponent to lead with scolopede, boost speed, BP to sylveon, and rock blast then misses. Otherwise, mega hera is gaurenteed at least 1 kill if you lead with it against a BP team.

Relevant calcs:

vs Vap

252+ Atk Mega Heracross Rock Blast (5 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Vaporeon: 195-235 (42 - 50.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Do I even need to show what bullet seed does to it?

vs Sylveon

252+ Atk Mega Heracross Rock Blast (5 hits) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Sylveon: 280-335 (71 - 85%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
4 SpA Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Mega Heracross: 264-312 (72.5 - 85.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

vs Zapdos

252+ Atk Mega Heracross Rock Blast (5 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zapdos: 320-380 (83.3 - 98.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
4 SpA Zapdos Heat Wave vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Mega Heracross: 158-188 (43.4 - 51.6%) -- 10.9% chance to 2HKO
4 SpA Zapdos Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Mega Heracross: 112-133 (30.7 - 36.5%) -- 64.5% chance to 3HKO

Nothing else can even pretend to stand up to megahera

Example 5: Lando-I (last one, I swear)

This guys is a lot like mega hera, nothing can swap in, period. While not quite as much of a hard counter as mega hera, it's very similar in it's mindlessness. It goes like this...

If opponent leads scolopede: step 1, Use gravity. step 2 Spam EP until he sends out smeargle. step 3 Send out sleep absorber, preferably u-turn mandibuzz/celibi or volt switch forretress.

If opponent leads with Zapdos and or gets free swap into zapdos: decide on whether or not zapdos is likely to be running HP ice. If you think it is, get out. Otherwise, use gravity and go to town

If opponent leads with Sylveon: swap out to sylveon counter

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Sylveon: 138-164 (35 - 41.6%) -- 74.7% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
4 SpA Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Voice vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Landorus: 165-195 (51.5 - 60.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Good news is that if you catch sylv on the swap with EP, you have a good shot of winning. You could run sludge wave, but psychic and gravity are better in general, so I discounted it. (look at that, I'm not even optimizing these sets for countering BP. Amazing......)

If opponent leads with anyone else: use EP, not even kidding

vs vaporeon:

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Vaporeon: 239-282 (51.5 - 60.7%) -- 93.4% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
4 SpA Vaporeon Scald vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Landorus: 228-270 (71.2 - 84.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO


TL;DR

BP is counterable by leading with strong offensive threats. Unless you are running mega-hera (who is guaranteed a kill vs a BP team), you will probably need two offensive threats and a sleep absorber (once again, preferably one with a fast switch move like mandi or forret). One that can threaten everything but one of the members of a BP team and a second one that can counter that one member and dent most of the rest of the team when the inevitable switch happens. Offensive teams have no excuse to not have a pair of offensive threats capable of this. As for stall teams..... Maybe run 5 stallmons + megahera/megacham? Either of them can walk through BP teams almost by themselves (or at least cripple them enough so that the normal stall tools actually work), and running a single offensive mon isn't a bad idea anyway because it's not like either of these mons are deadweight against other teams (especially if you have a decent cleric and wish passer). I have given 5 perfectly viable mons that one can lead with against BP teams and win with. There are more (I mentioned megacham, who works a lot like the megamawile example, and has BP for smeargle swap ins), but at this point examples start getting redundant.

TL;DR TL;DR

No bans are necessary. I am convinced.

*edit*

LustrousPalkia has the right idea. Look at his posts for an explanation as to why most non-offensive counters do not work. The only exception is taunt thundy-I, and that is because he can immediately threaten Espeon with dark pulse and doesn't care too much about getting taunted (might be a small problem if the smeargle is still full HP).

 

[PISTOLERO]

First of all, some people in this thread are being very rude and condescending, Over Zealous in particular. You might not be doing this on purpose, but you have no right to insult Baton Pass players and supporters just because, quite frankly, some of you are butthurt about losing to Baton Pass a couple of times. Let's keep the disussion informed and polite (yes I know that I'm being rude here but someone needs to say this)

"You shouldn't reply not because I'm allegedly "condescending" but because you lack sufficient knowledge of the metagame to post. I'm a consistently top 500 OU ladder player. Baton Pass is so high on the ladder not because it takes skill and knowledge of the metagame, but because it is an autonomous affair with Speed Boost Scolipede and Magic Bounce Espeon in particular, rendering the strategy to be countered in 1 of 2 niche and obscure ways. In the clearest way: if you don't pack 1 of 2 dedicated counters, you lose."

What a load of rubbish. I'll get to this later. I think Aquaslash deserves an apology from you tbh, but whatever.

Over Zealous , there's no need to be rude and condescending to other players, please stop. You also need to stop rebutting people like Aquaslash 's posts with responses that are, to be honest, complete and utter rubbish. You ever played with a Baton Pass team? I don't mean once or twice, I mean have you played 50+ games with Baton Pass in XY OU? because I have played a lot with Baton Pass, as a joke at first, but then as an actual playstyle, and I know from experience that Baton Pass teams have lots of weaknesses and flaws that can be easily exploited - there are certain things that it just cannot handle at all. I suggest that you go away and try the strategy yourself instead of just insulting and putting down us Baton Pass players - stop the condescending tone please. You clearly have no idea of the things that threaten Baton Pass. sorry for the harsh tone, and sorry to be singling you out, but you've been posting throughout this entire thread, and I'm definitely not the first one to notice how rude you are being. Also, nobody cares about your rank and ELO rating etc, the fact that you seem to need to mention it repeatedly says a lot already. well done on breaking into the ladder, but there's no need to act superior about it.

Okay, let's get into some of the things people are mentioning as counters/checks to Baton Pass:

Quagsire: NO. These are obvious from a mile off - for example, I, as a player that has experience with Baton Pass, can see Quagsire switchins from a mile away - I have even lured them in on things that can't hurt Quagsire at all, only to pass out into Espeon on the switchin and then get rid of it with Stored Power. Interestingly, 0 SpA Sylveon can 2HKO 252 HP Quagsire without any boosts, so yeah. Quagsire may ignore all the boosts but what Unaware does NOT ignore is the Stored Power boost - so Stored Power will be at 200/240/whatever base power when Quagsire takes it in the face.

Haze Gengar/Cofagrigus/whatever: NO. I will draw on my experience as a Baton Pass player here. whether or not Haze is viable on a certain OU Pokemon is an argument for their analysis threads, not this thread, let's not get sidetracked. secondly, as a BP player, the team preview is just as important for me as it is for you. I can look out for potential Haze users and, when they come out, instead of boosting in front of them, I make the safe play and just kill them straight away, then continue the chain. BATON PASS PLAYERS AREN'T STUPID, WE HAVE WAYS TO BEAT HAZE.

Taunt/Whirlwind/Roar: NO. these moves can be seen a mile off. killing the user/passing into Espeon is easy here. This requires prediction etc. see above point. Killing Prankster users is doable with prediction also.

Trick+whatever: NO. experienced BP players can also see this coming from a mile off. either BP into a Mega pokemon, or, Baton Pass into something that you won't use to take the Trick, then just Baton Pass. Or just set up Substitute (worst case scenario is that they're Infiltrator, in which case the part before the brackets applies).

Mold Breaker Roar/Taunt, Prankster Haze, etc: NO. Don't run these, they'll make you lose to non-BP teams. I agree with Over Zealous here, he makes a very good point that these are stupid, don't mention these. these are so specific that they aren't viable in the slightest.

however, notice that getting past these requires PREDICTION and SMART PLAY. If you mispredict, you LOSE. WHAT KIND OF MATCH DOESN'T WORK LIKE THIS? BATON PASS REQUIRES PREDICTION AND SMART PLAY AGAINST GOOD PLAYERS.

Now let's get into some Yeses

Strong Special Attackers: YES. As has been mentioned, special defense boosts are harder for the chain to get than defense boosts. This is a huge point, so let's go into some detail.

OU Special attackers: Mega Charizard Y, Mega Gardevoir, Sylveon, Thundurus-I, Landorus-I

There is NO BP chain in existence that can take these on, to be honest. If you've ever played BP, when you see Charizard in the preview, I can promise you that you'll be praying for it to be Charizard X and not Y, as you can take X on with Acid Armor from Vaporeon, but nothing can take sun-boosted Fire Blast from Charizard Y - even fully specially defensive Sylveon is 2HKOed, and running that spread on Sylveon is rare, as you'll want to run some speed to outspeed certain things at +2, +3 etc, as well as having Defense investment (Sylveon tends to want to Calm Mind on Special Attackers). Landorus-I can kill everything in 2 hits with either Sludge Wave or Earth Power. I can tell you that I've never once won against someone that led with Landorus-I. Mega Gardevoir and Specs Sylveon are grim too - there's no way that you can outboost the damage from their Hyper Voices, as you'll be taking 80% damage with everything, + it goes through Substitute.

Strong Physical Attackers: YES. these are nasty to play against, as loads of them can boost and crush the chain before it gets going. Swords Dance also boosts at the same rate as Iron Defense, so yeah.

OU Physical attackers: Mega Pinsir, Talonflame, Bisharp, etc

Scolipede can't handle any of these at all. they can easily boost and overwhelm the chain. only Vaporeon stands a chance, and only then if you PLAY CORRECTLY and SMARTLY.

Okay, now let's get into the philosophical issue that people have with Baton Pass.

"It's not fun to play against, it's formulaic, I have to prepare specifically for it bla bla etc"

Please don't say this. It is completely subjective. Let me elaborate:

DeoSharp teams: I personally find these to be boring and no fun to play against. Team Structure: Deoxys-whatever. Defiant Pokemon (Bisharp/THundurus). Spinblocker (most likely Pursuit Aegislash with Air Balloon). These teams are BORING to play against in my opinion, they are similar (please don't say that they aren't because they really REALLY are). They do work however, WHICH IS WHY PEOPLE USE THEM. in my opinion, Spikes Stacking Offense is boring, and predictable, and follows a very common formula (this is my opinion though, I despise Hyper Offense intensely and have always preferred balance). THIS IS MY OPINION HOWEVER, AND THESE TEAMS SHOULD NOT BE BANNED BECAUSE I (AND OTHERS) "DON'T LIKE THEM".

BW OU teams: I am not the only one who despised the shitfest that was BW OU. Rain teams everywhere. HO everywhere. Rain countertactics everywhere. Dugtrio and weather trapper Heatran being common to combat other weathers. in my opinion, weather, ESPECIALLY RAIN, was BORING to play against. Rain team setup: Ferrothorn, _____, Politoed, ____, ____, spinner (Starmie/Tentacruel). take your pick of Scizor, Dragonite, Keldeo, Terrakion, Tornadus, Thundurus-T etc for the three slots. Boring and predictable - and EVERY SECOND TEAM WAS A RAIN TEAM IN BW OU. BATON PASS IS WAY RARER THAN 1/2 TEAMS. rain teams were, in my opinion, generic, boring, predictable, yet people still used them because rain was good. AGAIN, MY OPINION ON 5TH GEN OU IS/WAS MY OPINION, AND EVEN THOUGH I DIDN'T LIKE IT, I NEVER CALLED FOR THESE KINDS OF TEAMS TO BE BANNED.

So are we REALLY trying to get Baton Pass banned because some people say that it is "no fun to play against", or "it's predictable", or "it's boring"? REALLY?! that is in NO WAY a valid argument against the playstyle!! You can say that Baton Pass teams are formulaic because they need Scolipede and Espeon and Sylveon etc. Well, DeoSharp teams need a Deoxys-Forme (seriously, the sooner these things are gone from OU the better) and a Defiant user, as well as a spinblocker (Aegislash of course, to fit the HO theme). that's pretty formulaic too. same goes for rain teams as I mentioned - Politoed, Ferrothorn, [name of offensive Water Type that has Hydro Pump goes here].

HOWEVER: I do appreciate the arguments against Baton Pass - I disagree with some of them, but I can understand people's concerns. I would say that I'm a decent player, a competent player, but not an excellent player. Baton Pass can be very mindless to use (it CAN be, not it IS), but from experience, good players can still beat the strategy. If a good player using BP beats a good player using HO, what's wrong with that?

Let me talk about Stall for a minute. I've heard people say that Stall is "cheap", Stall is "boring", Stall is "shameful", Stall is "cowardly". Personally I think that good stall teams are very hard to make properly, and Stall has to be the purest of playstyles - I personally enjoy playing both with and against stall, as it is a CHALLENGE. it is a different VARIETY of playstyle. VARIETY IS GOOD FOR THE METAGAME.

Examples: GSC OU is a complete stall shitfest. I find it boring to play, even though I like Stall as a whole, because there is no VARIETY. Let me think of another example - BW Ubers is a tier I was glad to say goodbye to, as lots of the teams were a generic boring Hyper Offense build, and it was all about spikes-stacking and spinblocking.

BATON PASS IS ANOTHER KIND OF PLAYSTYLE. THE MORE KINDS OF PLAYSTYLES THERE ARE THE MORE VARIED THE OU TIER IS.

Let's get back to the issue at hand. Baton Pass can be mindless. CAN be. NOT IS. Scolipede is the issue here I believe. I personally have played with loads of different Baton Pass users, from Venomoth to non-mega Mawile, from Mega Absol to Musharna. Baton Pass without a Speed Boost user is more challenging and in my opinion more fun to play. Using Agility Zapdos/Gliscor/Jolteon, or Quiver Dance Venomoth, is great (and all you Baton Pass users reading this should try other Eeveelutions by the way, Jolteon is actually quite good). As for those people who are saying"I can't counter Baton Pass with M-Pinsir/Talonflame because of Zapdos, now I can't win as easily", poor you for playing an opponent who has a way to deal with something that would otherwise cause him problems.

"Oh no! I can't sweep my opponent's entire team with Mega Pinsir because he has Skarmory! How unfair that he made his team to cover threats to it!"

What a load of rubbish. Anyways...

What I propose (and proposed a couple of pages ago) is this:

Ban Speed Boost users in conjunction with OTHER users of Baton Pass

this allows Scolipede/Ninjask to QuickPass, which is just fine. However, it will stop quite a lot of the mindless "Scolipede Protect/Substitute Lead" kinds of Baton Pass teams, whilst still keeping Baton Pass as a fun, fair and diverse strategy, that actually requires skill and experience to use properly.

One last note on team matchup: Stall Teams are at a severe disadvantage against Cube or Gothitelle. both of these pokemon are inherently unfair to stall teams. But are they banned? no.

Sorry for the huge long bitchy post, hopefully this will clear some of the issues with certain ideas that have been put forward in this thread :)

P.S. I'll explain why I think certain other ban ideas, EG restriction of no. of BP users on one team, are all bad ideas later :)

 

[Lord Wallace]

I have to disagree with the notion that Baton Pass isn't a competitive strategy (even if it is only remotely so). Setting up a chain isn't luck based like Swagger and actually requires some degree of skill to pull off. Isn't banning Baton Pass outright also to an extent limiting teambuilding by making certain Pokemon that found a niche in that playstyle completely unviable? Of course i recognize that the Council is far from even considering a suspect test but it's a point i wanted to bring up.
I think probably the best way to approach this issue if a suspect test does become an option without completely blotting out a perfectly legitimate, if underhanded, strategy is to be open to complex bans. Certain Pokemon that come to mind when considering a more complex restriction are Sylveon, Espeon, Scolipede, Gorebyss, Mawile, and Scizor. I might be missing a few threats but those are the ones that stand out me.

Another idea is to simply restrict the amount of Pokemon on a team that can have Baton Pass in their movesets to just one or two. This preserves the niche of Pokemon like Scolipede and doesn't punish any particular set on Pokemon like Sylveon while still discouraging really huge chains which I admit can get rather out of hand and uncompetitive in ladder play. Imo this is a good option to preserve an optimal degree of team flexibility regarding Baton Pass without completely eliminating the strategy because I do believe the move has a place in competitive play.

 

[BatNinja]

In my opinion, Baton Pass forces every team to hold at least one Pokémon dedicated to stop the chain. In my experience of battling a Baton Pass Team, I have pulled out the win 63% of the time because the opposing team protects first turn and switches to a sweeper that does not completely need the boost i.e. Garchomp, Salamence, Azumarill, and takes out my Prankster. They get a free switch to Yanmega or Scolipede or Ninjask and begin the Baton Pass chain. Once the chain has started it is nearly impossible to stop. Baton Pass makes the game that much more difficult and I think it should be banned. The specific things I would ban are Baton Pass + Speed Boost or Baton Pass + Magic Bounce.

 

[jrp]

This line exemplifies what is wrong with most posts in this thread. You are already approaching the problem the wrong way. Baton Pass is not a pokemon, move or ability, it's a playstyle. You are not supposed to be able to counter it 100% of the time with a non obscure counter. If there was a pokemon who could shut down bp 100% of the time and easily be slapped on any team, bp teams wouldn't be viable. The same can be said about deosharp teams, there isn't an easy and perfect way to always beat them, they are more or less prepared against everything, which is why they are viable in the first place.

The level of "countering" you should expect when dealing baton pass is a diferent one. It's being able to go into battle with a non obscure pokemon and have a decent chance of winning with the right prediction and strategy. And let me say again, there are a lot of pokemon who can do that. Any powerful wallbreaker can put enough pressure on bp teams from the beginning of the match, and thus force them into risky predictions that may cost them the match. As for stall teams, they have a way harder time, but if haze quagsire is a shaky check to them that works a reasonable amount of the time, them stall teams also have a fighting chance. And against an entire playstyle, having a fighting chance is enough to make it not overpowered.

Seriously guys, stop using words as 100%, always, or perfect, this isn't a pokemon suspect test, is an entire team we're talking about. The scale is just different.

the fact is that baton pass teams are inherently different from any other team in how they play. To beat stall, to beat standard offense, to beat DeoSharp you don't need to run obscure shit. A well built team can handle a lot of stuff thrown at it but be completely helpless against baton pass due to the very nature of the strategy. And when you're looking at something like baton pass, not carrying something that CAN beat it "100% of the time" as you've so kindly mocked my usage of, will cause you to be completely fucked by it.

 

[Ninja Charizard]

Mmm I should say that I'm coming from the perspective of a defensive player who always incorporates two stallbreakers (usually a combination like TauntTran + MMawile to cover Defoggers) so while I have a reasonable perspective of playing against Baton Pass with both defensive and offensive elements, I never play against them with HO, so I may be underestimating how much Baton Pass is forced to rely on prediction in these matchups. When using stall, though, no matter how well prepared you are, you lose, and there's no fight. Haze Quag isn't any kind of solution when the BPass chain does have workarounds and can typically set up over and over again until it breaks through. You'll understand that coming from my background, I can see Baton Pass as being insanely matchup reliant in general, even though for the majority of ladder players who run pure or bulky offense that isn't as much the case.

I think you're misunderstanding what I was saying about the boredom thing - I'd never use boredom as an argument for a ban. To use your stall analogy, while stall matches where there isn't some kind of major imbalance (e.g. one side has a good wallbreaker) can be boring, they're completely skill-reliant; more so than any other playstyle. Baton Pass vs stall is typically an auto-win which could be played out by a trained monkey, even if BPass vs offense is a fairly skill-based matchup. There isn't any other playstyle which can mindlessly win against another mainstream playstyle in this way. The only analogy I can think of which comes close is that of Deo hazard stacking teams vs stall; even if the stall team can Defog with a Quagsire in tow, they can't do so against a Taunting Deo without having to absorb a huge amount of offensive pressure with layers up; so defensive teams typically find somewhat gimmicky ways of working around Deoxys, even as they're forced to do against BPass. Even this isn't as severe as the Baton Pass scenario though, because in the case of Baton Pass the "punishment" if you don't carry one of these solutions is much greater; you get swept, as opposed to having to play round hazards until you can Defog.

Alright, I don't play either stall or bp, so I'll go ahead and believe you. But here's a thing I brought up in the beginning of the thread: stall was completely unviable last generation. I only started playing in this gen, but from what I've read that was because of weather and entry hazards. And they didn't ban these things, they just accepted the shift of the meta away from stall. This time stall is coming back, and frankly I think if it wants to earn its place in the meta, stall should adapt to the meta instead of banning its counters out of it. The meta will never evolve if we keep nerfing it to keep the status quo.
One thing that I've noticed is that smogon tends to walk dangerously to the realm of scrubism. Scrubs are players who try to nerf a metagame to get rid of things they don't want to adapt to. I know that's not where smogon wants to go, but it risks doing that every time it decides to ban something. Before we ban something, we should really think whether we are banning them becUse they are truly uncompetitive, or because we are refusing to adapt to it. And in bp's case, I believe it's the second thing. We are trying to nerf the metagame to get rid of something we don't want to adapt to, when we could instead evolve as players and adapt to it.

 

[Jukain]

First of all, some people in this thread are being very rude and condescending, Over Zealous in particular. You might not be doing this on purpose, but you have no right to insult Baton Pass players and supporters just because, quite frankly, some of you are butthurt about losing to Baton Pass a couple of times. Let's keep the disussion informed and polite (yes I know that I'm being rude here but someone needs to say this)



What a load of rubbish. I'll get to this later. I think Aquaslash deserves an apology from you tbh, but whatever.

Over Zealous , there's no need to be rude and condescending to other players, please stop. You also need to stop rebutting people like Aquaslash 's posts with responses that are, to be honest, complete and utter rubbish. You ever played with a Baton Pass team? I don't mean once or twice, I mean have you played 50+ games with Baton Pass in XY OU? because I have played a lot with Baton Pass, as a joke at first, but then as an actual playstyle, and I know from experience that Baton Pass teams have lots of weaknesses and flaws that can be easily exploited - there are certain things that it just cannot handle at all. I suggest that you go away and try the strategy yourself instead of just insulting and putting down us Baton Pass players - stop the condescending tone please. You clearly have no idea of the things that threaten Baton Pass. sorry for the harsh tone, and sorry to be singling you out, but you've been posting throughout this entire thread, and I'm definitely not the first one to notice how rude you are being. Also, nobody cares about your rank and ELO rating etc, the fact that you seem to need to mention it repeatedly says a lot already. well done on breaking into the ladder, but there's no need to act superior about it.

Okay, let's get into some of the things people are mentioning as counters/checks to Baton Pass:

Quagsire: NO. These are obvious from a mile off - for example, I, as a player that has experience with Baton Pass, can see Quagsire switchins from a mile away - I have even lured them in on things that can't hurt Quagsire at all, only to pass out into Espeon on the switchin and then get rid of it with Stored Power. Interestingly, 0 SpA Sylveon can 2HKO 252 HP Quagsire without any boosts, so yeah. Quagsire may ignore all the boosts but what Unaware does NOT ignore is the Stored Power boost - so Stored Power will be at 200/240/whatever base power when Quagsire takes it in the face.

Haze Gengar/Cofagrigus/whatever: NO. I will draw on my experience as a Baton Pass player here. whether or not Haze is viable on a certain OU Pokemon is an argument for their analysis threads, not this thread, let's not get sidetracked. secondly, as a BP player, the team preview is just as important for me as it is for you. I can look out for potential Haze users and, when they come out, instead of boosting in front of them, I make the safe play and just kill them straight away, then continue the chain. BATON PASS PLAYERS AREN'T STUPID, WE HAVE WAYS TO BEAT HAZE.

Taunt/Whirlwind/Roar: NO. these moves can be seen a mile off. killing the user/passing into Espeon is easy here. This requires prediction etc. see above point. Killing Prankster users is doable with prediction also.

Trick+whatever: NO. experienced BP players can also see this coming from a mile off. either BP into a Mega pokemon, or, Baton Pass into something that you won't use to take the Trick, then just Baton Pass. Or just set up Substitute (worst case scenario is that they're Infiltrator, in which case the part before the brackets applies).

Mold Breaker Roar/Taunt, Prankster Haze, etc: NO. Don't run these, they'll make you lose to non-BP teams. I agree with Over Zealous here, he makes a very good point that these are stupid, don't mention these. these are so specific that they aren't viable in the slightest.

however, notice that getting past these requires PREDICTION and SMART PLAY. If you mispredict, you LOSE. WHAT KIND OF MATCH DOESN'T WORK LIKE THIS? BATON PASS REQUIRES PREDICTION AND SMART PLAY AGAINST GOOD PLAYERS.

Now let's get into some Yeses

Strong Special Attackers: YES. As has been mentioned, special defense boosts are harder for the chain to get than defense boosts. This is a huge point, so let's go into some detail.

OU Special attackers: Mega Charizard Y, Mega Gardevoir, Sylveon, Thundurus-I, Landorus-I

There is NO BP chain in existence that can take these on, to be honest. If you've ever played BP, when you see Charizard in the preview, I can promise you that you'll be praying for it to be Charizard X and not Y, as you can take X on with Acid Armor from Vaporeon, but nothing can take sun-boosted Fire Blast from Charizard Y - even fully specially defensive Sylveon is 2HKOed, and running that spread on Sylveon is rare, as you'll want to run some speed to outspeed certain things at +2, +3 etc, as well as having Defense investment (Sylveon tends to want to Calm Mind on Special Attackers). Landorus-I can kill everything in 2 hits with either Sludge Wave or Earth Power. I can tell you that I've never once won against someone that led with Landorus-I. Mega Gardevoir and Specs Sylveon are grim too - there's no way that you can outboost the damage from their Hyper Voices, as you'll be taking 80% damage with everything, + it goes through Substitute.

Strong Physical Attackers: YES. these are nasty to play against, as loads of them can boost and crush the chain before it gets going. Swords Dance also boosts at the same rate as Iron Defense, so yeah.

OU Physical attackers: Mega Pinsir, Talonflame, Bisharp, etc

Scolipede can't handle any of these at all. they can easily boost and overwhelm the chain. only Vaporeon stands a chance, and only then if you PLAY CORRECTLY and SMARTLY.

Okay, now let's get into the philosophical issue that people have with Baton Pass.

"It's not fun to play against, it's formulaic, I have to prepare specifically for it bla bla etc"

Please don't say this. It is completely subjective. Let me elaborate:

DeoSharp teams: I personally find these to be boring and no fun to play against. Team Structure: Deoxys-whatever. Defiant Pokemon (Bisharp/THundurus). Spinblocker (most likely Pursuit Aegislash with Air Balloon). These teams are BORING to play against in my opinion, they are similar (please don't say that they aren't because they really REALLY are). They do work however, WHICH IS WHY PEOPLE USE THEM. in my opinion, Spikes Stacking Offense is boring, and predictable, and follows a very common formula (this is my opinion though, I despise Hyper Offense intensely and have always preferred balance). THIS IS MY OPINION HOWEVER, AND THESE TEAMS SHOULD NOT BE BANNED BECAUSE I (AND OTHERS) "DON'T LIKE THEM".

BW OU teams: I am not the only one who despised the shitfest that was BW OU. Rain teams everywhere. HO everywhere. Rain countertactics everywhere. Dugtrio and weather trapper Heatran being common to combat other weathers. in my opinion, weather, ESPECIALLY RAIN, was BORING to play against. Rain team setup: Ferrothorn, _____, Politoed, ____, ____, spinner (Starmie/Tentacruel). take your pick of Scizor, Dragonite, Keldeo, Terrakion, Tornadus, Thundurus-T etc for the three slots. Boring and predictable - and EVERY SECOND TEAM WAS A RAIN TEAM IN BW OU. BATON PASS IS WAY RARER THAN 1/2 TEAMS. rain teams were, in my opinion, generic, boring, predictable, yet people still used them because rain was good. AGAIN, MY OPINION ON 5TH GEN OU IS/WAS MY OPINION, AND EVEN THOUGH I DIDN'T LIKE IT, I NEVER CALLED FOR THESE KINDS OF TEAMS TO BE BANNED.

So are we REALLY trying to get Baton Pass banned because some people say that it is "no fun to play against", or "it's predictable", or "it's boring"? REALLY?! that is in NO WAY a valid argument against the playstyle!! You can say that Baton Pass teams are formulaic because they need Scolipede and Espeon and Sylveon etc. Well, DeoSharp teams need a Deoxys-Forme (seriously, the sooner these things are gone from OU the better) and a Defiant user, as well as a spinblocker (Aegislash of course, to fit the HO theme). that's pretty formulaic too. same goes for rain teams as I mentioned - Politoed, Ferrothorn, [name of offensive Water Type that has Hydro Pump goes here].

HOWEVER: I do appreciate the arguments against Baton Pass - I disagree with some of them, but I can understand people's concerns. I would say that I'm a decent player, a competent player, but not an excellent player. Baton Pass can be very mindless to use (it CAN be, not it IS), but from experience, good players can still beat the strategy. If a good player using BP beats a good player using HO, what's wrong with that?

Let me talk about Stall for a minute. I've heard people say that Stall is "cheap", Stall is "boring", Stall is "shameful", Stall is "cowardly". Personally I think that good stall teams are very hard to make properly, and Stall has to be the purest of playstyles - I personally enjoy playing both with and against stall, as it is a CHALLENGE. it is a different VARIETY of playstyle. VARIETY IS GOOD FOR THE METAGAME.

Examples: GSC OU is a complete stall shitfest. I find it boring to play, even though I like Stall as a whole, because there is no VARIETY. Let me think of another example - BW Ubers is a tier I was glad to say goodbye to, as lots of the teams were a generic boring Hyper Offense build, and it was all about spikes-stacking and spinblocking.

BATON PASS IS ANOTHER KIND OF PLAYSTYLE. THE MORE KINDS OF PLAYSTYLES THERE ARE THE MORE VARIED THE OU TIER IS.

Let's get back to the issue at hand. Baton Pass can be mindless. CAN be. NOT IS. Scolipede is the issue here I believe. I personally have played with loads of different Baton Pass users, from Venomoth to non-mega Mawile, from Mega Absol to Musharna. Baton Pass without a Speed Boost user is more challenging and in my opinion more fun to play. Using Agility Zapdos/Gliscor/Jolteon, or Quiver Dance Venomoth, is great (and all you Baton Pass users reading this should try other Eeveelutions by the way, Jolteon is actually quite good). As for those people who are saying"I can't counter Baton Pass with M-Pinsir/Talonflame because of Zapdos, now I can't win as easily", poor you for playing an opponent who has a way to deal with something that would otherwise cause him problems.

"Oh no! I can't sweep my opponent's entire team with Mega Pinsir because he has Skarmory! How unfair that he made his team to cover threats to it!"

What a load of rubbish. Anyways...

What I propose (and proposed a couple of pages ago) is this:

Ban Speed Boost users in conjunction with OTHER users of Baton Pass

this allows Scolipede/Ninjask to QuickPass, which is just fine. However, it will stop quite a lot of the mindless "Scolipede Protect/Substitute Lead" kinds of Baton Pass teams, whilst still keeping Baton Pass as a fun, fair and diverse strategy, that actually requires skill and experience to use properly.

One last note on team matchup: Stall Teams are at a severe disadvantage against Cube or Gothitelle. both of these pokemon are inherently unfair to stall teams. But are they banned? no.

Sorry for the huge long bitchy post, hopefully this will clear some of the issues with certain ideas that have been put forward in this thread :)

P.S. I'll explain why I think certain other ban ideas, EG restriction of no. of BP users on one team, are all bad ideas later :)

Your special attackers list is not even correct. Both of the Hyper Voice users get stopped in their tracks by Mime. Lando-I without Sludge Wave gets stopped by Sylveon, or Zapdos if they run it. And:

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Sludge Wave vs. +1 252 HP / 0 SpD Sylveon: 174-205 (44.1 - 52%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Mega Char Y is a pain to deal with, but is far from impossible. Once you get Sylveon in (through plays like BPing to Vaporeon and getting Sylveon in on a Solar Beam), you can just set up CM and it's over. You can also just stall out Fire Blasts, which isn't that hard given Substitutes, Vaporeon's resist, Mime's Encore, misses, etc. This is from personal experience testing BP; these Pokemon are FAR from an autoloss.

Spore Smeargle and Vaporeon will let you get past the Flying mons (though BP will have trouble against multiple Pokemon Fly spam no question), or even just Zapdos if you choose to run it, and Bisharp just gets Iron Defense'd/Acid Armor'd on by Scoli/Vap.

NONE of the Pokemon you mentioned besides Prankster Taunt Thundurus are doing that well vs BP. The fact that it takes the use of a few brain cells to overcome them does not change the fact that BP is entirely mindless in virtually any other scenario, and it takes just a couple predictions to deal with them anyways.

Your BW OU rain example doesn't really work because there are a crap load of individuals who would have banned Drizzle if they could have -- if it was suspected, I have little doubt that it would have been banned. And, as jpw234 has mentioned, there is no 'perfect' HO team. Parts of the team are formulaic, but the fact is that BP has been figured out down to seven viable Pokemon and the exact sets/minute variations thereof that each should run is, which is entirely different. Each HO team has its individual issues and will differ in rather drastic ways, and you will never autowin with HO at Team Preview. To boot there are also numerous players who would want a ban of the Deoxys formes, at least Deo-D, as of now. Still, therein lies the major difference between BP and other styles of play. Either you autowin or you autolose, barring critical hax. The game is decided from the moment it starts unless the BP player is literally retarded.

As a last aside you can't call people out for being insulting if you're going to make 3x the insults in your post :|

 

[Baharoth]

Some people dont seem to understand that its not about getting an unavoidable free win against BP, especialy not by using just special/physical attackers. If Lando-I or what ever was enough to beat BP 100% of the time, no matter what the BP player does, then nobody would play BP and we wouldnt have to argue here.

But even if those things dont give you an autowin, they still give you a decent chance to beat BP without using some "stupid shit" as some people put it. One of the main questions here is whether or not standard teams have to go out of their way to beat BP. And with such a long list of physical and special attackers that can win you the match against BP the answer to that is obviously no. Yes, if you want to beat BP 100% of the time you might have to run some stupid shit, but hey i doubt its even possible to beat standard teams 100% of the time no matter what kind of shit you use against them.

So what reasons to ban it are there? Because its annying to play against them? Well it definetely is but is that a reason? Standard teams can beat them with standard stuff if they want to so whats the problem?

 

[HeraldOfGrass]

1. Is Baton Pass (with specific reference to full Baton Pass teams) a problem for the development of the metagame?

No, not really. You need to be relatively good at predicting and being able not to greed buffs, but it limits their windows of vulnerability considerably.
2. If so, what elements, in particular, do you think are pushing Baton Pass over the edge?
Too many Baton Passers on one team is bad for both players. For the player using it, you're absurdly dependant on a steady flow of buffs, which does not necessarily means it is situational, but for me, it "forces" you to do something quite similar in all games. And who fights against it finds it hard to seize opportunities to win unless they have a convenient Pokémon in his/her team.
Do you believe that banning individual Pokémon (such as Espeon/Scolipede) would make Baton Pass manageable?
No. That would just be unfair with Pokémon that are not overpowered by themselves and would be an unnecessary cut in a player's choices.

Would you support a blanket ban on the move Baton Pass?
No, even though I'd laugh at a banlist with BP.

Would you support the introduction of complex bans (like Pokémon X+Pokémon Y on the same team)? Feel free to suggest more forms of complex bans, of course.

To me, limiting the number of Pokémon that can have Baton Pass in a team would be the best course of action. I don't know what would be the limit if it ever got into the metagame, but it should be something that allows the use of Baton Passers creatively but that doesn't create an auto-chain of steady buffs.

 

[Jojobobo]

I haven't read this entire thread too thoroughly, but might not banning certain moves in conjunction with BP be a good idea? It seems like Stored Power is what gives a lot of these teams teeth, by giving Sylveon a ridiculously powerful coverage move and Espeon just a ridiculously OP move in the first place. So I'd therefore ban combos of Stored Power and Baton Pass. I don't think this is too complex of a ban to enforce (however I'm only guessing), and it isn't too restrictive - BPer's can still still make a BP team, but it lack the ridiculousness of 200 BP (300 BP if STABed) move in toe once you've got some boosts under your hat (also a combo of Stored Power and Baton Pass is almost exclusively going to be used by these sorts of teams, therefore you're not treading on anyone else's toes either). Psychic and Psyshock don't compare to that level of power.

Either that, or remove another linchpin of the core team in terms of a two move combo ban where one of those moves is BP (e.g. combos Hyper Voice and Baton Pass from Sylveon, so you'll run into difficultly if your opponent can sub); but bans like taking Baton Pass off Scolipede when that's practically the only reason you'd ever use him seem a bit too severe. The ban should be more of a nerf to the one or two examples of relatively invariant teams that have rote strategies and hence aren't extremely competitive.

 

[HeraldOfGrass]

Has anyone tried to use Clear Smog? It's a consistent way of finishing the BP chain and is relatively solid even when you're not facing a BP team. I use it on a Chandelure with Infiltrate and he has decent potential.

 

[TheInsanity]

With scolipede (better than ninjask, with iron defense) and mr mime (immune to dragon tail this gen, and with an awesome typing, without counting the immunity to roar, PS) the BP strategy this gen has 2 huge weapons.

A lot of players says "i run haze, gg against BP", but this is not true. The first pokemon with haze in the default set this gen was quagsire. But he is fucked against a grass move. And in any case, u can taunt anyone (because u are fast like hell, with speed boost scolipede) u think can run haze. All mons with haze are wall, so is not a crime wasting a turn for a BP team. So for saying "i run haze, gg BP" u need a mon with haze AND prankster.

A way to counter BP is taunt + prankster. But with espeon this strategy cannot work. Same if we try to put to sleep.

Clear smog now is a real solution, but steel is immune. Today i see two BP team with scizor in the ladder for this reason, around the 1650.

I simply suggest to ban Speed Boost Scolipede with the move Baton Pass. If a player wanna use scolipede, he can use the other ability in a BP team. If a player wanna use SB scolipede, he can use him without BP.

BP are still alive, with this solution, but they are forced to run ninjask without iron defense. And is more easy to stop the chain in without a +2 in defense.

Ban magic bounce with baton pass totally kill the strategy behind BP, and is probably too much.

 

[biggy330]

I do not believe that baton passing warrants a ban. anybody who is not willing to have a counter to baton pass should lose to baton pass. Anyone who doesn't have a counter to hyper offense or Stall or top tier threats WILL LOSE. this isn't a coin flip, like swagger, but a battle of prediction, even if you have to predict in the teambuilder, But THAT IS THE HEART OF COMPETITIVE POKEMON. A great example of this is ash teams. They are used in ou, predict NOTHING meta and lose. if If baton pass is played at a high level because everybody wants to ban baton pass because you can't prepare then the only viable meta for you is random battle. if you ban any form of baton pass, then you need to ban every popular core, because I'm bored of deo sharp and skarmbliss and talonflame, I wanna use ludicolo only (he is actually my favorite) but that means I am going to lose to flying types and teams of 6. Should thru be banned also ?

 

[Avira]

If my opinion means anything at all anymore, I support the idea to make a complex ban on Stored Power + Baton Pass on the same Pokemon for a few different reasons:

1. It prevents us from having to pick an arbitrary number with regards to how many Pokes with BP we would allow on a team.
2. It drastically slows down full Baton Pass teams without completely killing them, and it also preserves other strategies related to BP.
3. It does not nerf Espeon as a whole, which a complex ban on Magic Bounce + Baton Pass would do.

I support a ban on the use of Stored Power and Baton Pass as well.

If the OU tiering council does decide to do something about Baton Paton, the ideal (at least to me) solution should consider the following things:

1. Whether the nerf actually hinders the playstle
2. Whether the decision kills off the playstyle or archetype in its entirety;
3. Whether there is too much subjectivity involved;
4. Whether the normal functioning of a Pokemon or more than one Pokemon is/are effected outside of BP teams;
5. Whether the complexity of the ban is so high that it borders on farcical.

A ban on Stored Power + Baton Pass on the same Pokemon would limit BP chains by make it harder to gain the desired power level since the team's most powerful recipient cannot BP away for whatever reason, requiring more effort be invested to ensure that Stored Power gains sufficient Base Power (Should the council find that this does not do enough, the issue can be revisited. Alternatively, maybe Stored Power + Baton Pass on the same team instead of Pokemon would be more effective since it would cover a couple more things). Such a ban would not kill off the Baton Pass archetype in its entirety and full BP chains would still exist. As Super Mario Bro has stated, this suggestion would not result in council members arbitrarily picking a number that is deemed acceptable, and Espeon would not be hindered outside of Baton Pass teams. This proposed ban is also relatively simple, involving two elements (same type of element) on a smaller scale. The DrizzleSwim ban involved two abilities on the same team, which was basically two elements on a larger scale, and the proposed ban would not be that different [2 moves on the same Pokemon (or team)].

 

[escarlata]

After giving full Baton Pass chains quite a number of runs, changing core components to see which component is pushing it over the top, I'd say Speed Boost is close to being one but is not the true factor that pushes it over the top (*hint, RP + Amnesia Mew works as a good replacement with good consistency as well). Maybe it is just the way my test team is structured but I believe that Fairies are the factor that is pushing them over the top. So I'd propose something which has been unproposed as of yet:

Ban Baton Pass on Fairy-types
Lets first look at the cost of this decision. There is literally no Fairy type that actually normally run Baton Pass in OU outside of dedicated chains, which means this will not hinder any other playstyle other than dedicated BP chains.

Fairies, be it Sylveon, Mawile, Mr. Mime or Togekiss, are serving as the glue to the team, here is a list of things that Fairies provide to a typical BP chain:

- Resistance to the ubiquitous Knock Off, and Dragon type attacks

• We know Dark type attacks are everywhere this gen, be it in the form of Knock Off, Dark Pulse, or Sucker Punch. It just so happens that barring said Fairy types, a typical BP chain has no way of avoiding massive damage from aforesaid moves, especially considering many users of these moves are perfectly capable of boosting alongside a BP chain.
• While usage of Outrage has dropped significantly, it is still perfectly capable of running through a BP team on the few users that still do use it, the added immunity to Dragon Tail reduces the reliance on IngrainPass.
• Dropping the Fairy type from the BP chain makes it much easier to deal with as a whole.

- Coverage for Espeon on Dark types

• Typical BP chains end with Espeon abusing that insanely powerful Stored Power, which Dark types are the only safe switch ins for (and said Dark types are everywhere), while Espeon normally can just pass the boosts to Sylveon/Togekiss to continue boosting up and break them down with PixiVoice/Dazzling Gleam.
• Losing a Fairy means Espeon has to run additional coverage moves, or use other measures to deal with Dark type.
• Running coverage moves on Espeon is hard considering Sub, CM and Baton Pass are difficult to drop from Espeon for various reasons;
• Not having Sub makes Espeon prone to hax/priority etc, even with +2 or +4 Def, and makes it harder to get CMs up;
• Not having CM means Espeon cannot boost on its own, which diminishes its use;
• Not having BP means you are putting all your eggs in 1 basket, which is sub-optimal either

- Stat/Movepool contributions to the chain

• Incidentally, the best SAtk boosters for a BP chain happens to be the Fairies themselves, banning of BP on Fairy types usually means Psychic types have to be used, which stacks more weaknesses to common types, while offering less overall bulk compared to say Togekiss or Sylveon.
• Sylveon is usually one of the best answer to special attackers that threaten the chain, not having Sylveon increases the checks of a BP team, and it is challenging to find something that fill in the void in full BP chains from the loss of a Fairy.

Overall, I feel that removal of Fairies from BP chains will have little consequences outside of full BP chains, while making full BP chains much easier to deal with.

 

[QuickBH]

Enough fishing, I really don't see how Zard Y beats Baton Pass, Scolipede literally just spams Sub+Protect until you run of Fire Blast and even if you have Air Slash you send in Zapdos who you can't OHKO with Fire Blast and even Smeargle is a fucking bitch unless you get 1 turn of sleep in which case have my children so they can inherit your luck.

Subject 18 Edit: Removed mentions of a deleted post

 

[Baharoth]

Guardevoir often runs shadow ball and can copy speed boost with trace in its base form so it shouldnt have to many problems with outspeeding and koing Mr Mime. Just saying. CM Guardevoir and Mega Alakazam are probably two of the best BP counters, just boost up alongside Scolipede and then rape the BP team with high powered moves.

 

[Delibird is Amazing]

After giving full Baton Pass chains quite a number of runs, changing core components to see which component is pushing it over the top, I'd say Speed Boost is close to being one but is not the true factor that pushes it over the top (*hint, RP + Amnesia Mew works as a good replacement with good consistency as well). Maybe it is just the way my test team is structured but I believe that Fairies are the factor that is pushing them over the top. So I'd propose something which has been unproposed as of yet:

Ban Baton Pass on Fairy-types
Lets first look at the cost of this decision. There is literally no Fairy type that actually normally run Baton Pass outside of dedicated chains, which means this will not hinder any other playstyle other than dedicated BP chains.

http://www.smogon.com/bw/pokemon/mr_mime

notice how his first set is called "baton pass"

 

[escarlata]

http://www.smogon.com/bw/pokemon/mr_mime

notice how his first set is called "baton pass"

^ which is dedicated to baton pass chains, if you didn't realise

 

[Delibird is Amazing]

^ which is dedicated to baton pass chains, if you didn't realise

it's dedicated to quickpassing nasty plots/calm minds.

even the second set which is called "special sweeper" has baton pass as one of the moves

 

[escarlata]

it's dedicated to quickpassing nasty plots/calm minds.

even the second set which is called "special sweeper" has baton pass as one of the moves

You are looking at NU.
Quoting from the original article itself:

In almost all situations, Mr. Mime is a very poor choice in OU. In terms of stats, ability, and movepool, Alakazam and Espeon are almost completely superior. However, Mr. Mime's ability, Soundproof, gives it a niche on full Baton Pass teams, as it gives Mr. Mime immunity to Perish Song and Roar. In fact, it's the only Pokemon with access to both Soundproof and Baton Pass, and therefore the only good answer to Perish Song that Baton Pass teams have.

 

[Scorpiopt]

Its impossible to break a chain with Scolipede with mental herb and Espeon clomplex ban needs to happen

Batton Pass+ Stored Power and Speed boost chains ban needs to happen

 

[Baharoth]

Not to rebutt you, as that's actually quite a good idea (done it myself with Gardevoir before) but you can tailor Scolipede with Poison Jab for fairies, or Megahorn for Alakazam (although Alakazam outspeeds)

Yeah sure, got my Deo-S raped by Megahorn once but most Scolis dont run it from my experience and without it those 2 come pretty close to beeing an autowin. And with Megahorn he is lacking either Sub or Protect something that hinders him massivly against other things so even though it has its uses, its not the ideal choice imo.

 

[Delibird is Amazing]

You are looking at NU
Quoting from the original article itself:

You said "There is literally no Fairy type that actually normally run Baton Pass outside of dedicated chains"
mr mime does in lower tiers. That's my point