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

[s_aman]

Every baton pass team needs :
1) speed boost
2) magic bounce
3) secondary phazing check
4) sweeper
I know they also need boosters but it is a given on BP teams and the above things are what make the chain work. Scoli gets speed boost and iron defense. I don't need to tell you about espeon. Secondary phazing check is generally smeargle or sometimes zapdos and sweeper is again espeon and sylveon. Sylveon is the glue to bp teams as without it dark and ghost types can singlehandedly (exaggaration) defeat bp chains especially aegislash. So, i think the ideal cap would be 3. Anything more than that can lead to the 4th gen strategy of boosting and then passing to a sweeper.

 

[PISTOLERO]

Jukain, Thinking of extreme compression - you need Speed, Defense, Special Defense, and Special Attack would be nice too, if not mandatory, if you're making a chain. You can crush this into:

Scolipede: Iron Defense/Baton Pass/Substitute/Protect

Sylveon: Hyper Voice/Calm Mind/Substitute/Baton Pass

Espeon: Stored Power/Substitute/Baton Pass/Calm Mind or Dazzling Gleam

no, you're right, you really really want Vaporeon to boost on physical sweepers. You could however drop Baton Pass on Sylveon, run Vaporeon instead, and have Hyper Voice/Stored Power/Calm Mind/Sustitute Sylveon, in the vein of a Baton Pass recipient that does not have Baton Pass itself. This woud be way harder to pull off though, so actually, Jukain is right. 3 Baton Pass users on one team maximum (this still allows you to run PursuitPass Espeon, QuickPass Scolipede and SmashPass Smeargle, or other weird things, if you really want to, and doesn't kill Baton Pass chaining, but rather restricts it to mini-chaining within a team, which is way more manageable.

I support Jukain's proposal of limiting the amount of Baton Pass users to 3 per team. I hope the explanation as to why 3 is fine is clear - if not, i'd be happy to expand.

P.S. YES BOLD AND CAPS DOES MAKE MY POINT STRONGER. BOLD ON EVERYTHING

 

[VictoryHD]

There's no way to nerf the "playstyle" without either getting overly complex or allowing it to remain overpowered. Baton Pass teams should die, plain and simple. There's no obligation to preserve a playstyle at all. Now before you cite gen 5, acknowledge that quite a few well respected players thought Drizzle was still overpowered even after the numerous nerfs and this is the reason why many look at gen 5 with contempt. Baton Pass is the same thing, it needs to leave in its entirety like swagger did. Get over it.


Strawman fallacy right there. There's no slippery slope here or anything similar. Your comparison is off base because it's hard to categorize Baton Pass as a playstyle when it's in a league of its own.

by saying this you are suggesting that other BP strategys sould be banned as well i am against banning it whatsoever and banning it from scolipede or espeon is even worse BUT if need be ill live with limiting only 3 BPers a team beacuse i have a team startegy where i only have 1 BPer wich is scolipede and the point of him is to boost up and then pass to mega heracross so i can get some good speed and power HOWEVER 6 times out of 10 something happens

1. scolipede is OHKOed by alakazam or something else

2. someone sticky webbed me and scolipede is taken out

3. i get swept too fast and scolipede wont stand a chance

these are just 3 reasons why i only run 1 BPer on my team because im not trying to get the huge boost from BP with swords dance im trying to get just enough so that mega heracross can get the job done so at mos twe sholud only ban BP so that you can only have 3 BPers on a team at a time that way small strategys like the one i have here can still work because i know plenty of people that do the same thing as me and they belive that just full on banning baton-pass is stupid so at the very lest make it so they can only have a max of 3 or if all else fails a max of 1

 

[Colonel M]

After carefully reading the vast amount of arguments in this thread, I personally feel that Baton Pass is not broken. The knowledgeable users in this thread have suggested many clear-cut BP counters, such as Imprison Musharna, which, even against non-BP teams, can give defensive boosts to its teammates. Haze Quagsire is also a viable Pokemon in the metagame, giving stall another answer to the prevalent DD Haxorous. Murkrow is also a great option, being able to thunder Wave opposing teams with its Prankster ability and supporting its team with Feather Dance and Haze. Overall, Baton Pass has a large amount of counters which are viable in the metagame, and banning it should simply not be an option.

Also, I would like to remind everyone that Roar Mega Gyarados is a huge counter to Baton Pass as well as Prankster Taunt Thundurus - these threats are pivotal to throw on your teams in order to counter Baton Pass. Infiltrator Topsy-Turvy Malamar also 6-0s Baton Pass - a threat not to be underestimated.

'this post has been provided courtesy of the tsunami foundation'

tl;dr version:

(ty based Yilx)

 

[Sucker Lunch]

*Balanced Offense vs. Baton Pass *

The problem with BP is that all the members of the team essentially work as one unstoppable pokemon.
Due to switch priority (which isn't even needed after enough defense boosts) you can't threaten the playstyle because any competent player will always be one step ahead. The best solution (which I mentioned earlier) is that we nerf the number of baton pass users to 2. That way, Scoilipede/Espeon isn't unfairly banned and the playstyle can be used for how it was intended - giving a few boosts to one pokemon and not passing them around to an entire team.

 

[danilo]

If u are gonna cap bp then go w/ a cap of two, not three. a cap of three gives u access to speed booster, espeon, and another booster + passer, which is really all u need.

Edit by Haunter: much better.

=]

 

[Colonel M]

I actually agree with limiting Baton Pass to two members. I think the only issue that may rise is Smashpass - but we can see how good / bad that pans out afterwords.

 

[DartMonkey29]

If u are gonna cap bp then go w/ a cap of two, not three. a cap of three gives u access to speed booster, espeon, and another booster + passer, which is really all u need.

Edit by Haunter: much better.

A 3 Baton Pass chain is very easy to deal with for virtually every team. Espeon + Scol/Ninjask + One more user is not that threatening, because you can't have all the elements you need such as multiple defense boosters of different types, Mr. Mime for Roar/Perish Songs (Roar users Espeon can't always take on), and things like Smeargle that beat opposing set up sweepers and can ingrain to stop a phase. If you team can't beat a 3 Baton Pass chain it shouldn't be in OU, limiting it to 3 is perfectly fine, you don't need to reduce it to 2.

 

[VictoryHD]

I actually agree with limiting Baton Pass to two members. I think the only issue that may rise is Smashpass - but we can see how good / bad that pans out afterwords.

i agree that does sound like a good idea to work with for now and see how it turns out in that case people with strategys who only need 1 baton passer for a quick boost or any other kinds of strategys can easily keep their startegys

 

[Jukain]

Based on Danilo's logic I can see 3 working out; 2 looks to be an appropriate cap then.

 

[WebBowser]

After carefully reading the vast amount of arguments in this thread, I personally feel that Baton Pass is not broken. The knowledgeable users in this thread have suggested many clear-cut BP counters, such as Imprison Musharna, which, even against non-BP teams, can give defensive boosts to its teammates. Haze Quagsire is also a viable Pokemon in the metagame, giving stall another answer to the prevalent DD Haxorous. Murkrow is also a great option, being able to thunder Wave opposing teams with its Prankster ability and supporting its team with Feather Dance and Haze. Overall, Baton Pass has a large amount of counters which are viable in the metagame, and banning it should simply not be an option.

Also, I would like to remind everyone that Roar Mega Gyarados is a huge counter to Baton Pass as well as Prankster Taunt Thundurus - these threats are pivotal to throw on your teams in order to counter Baton Pass.

'this post has been provided courtesy of the tsunami foundation'

tl;dr version:

(ty based Yilx)

Having a difficult time figuring out whether you are trolling or being serious, but I have not seen a BP team that runs a solid counter for magnezone, who is 100% OU viable, unlike murkrow or haze quagsire.

I have also provided a replay that shows megacham pretty much guaranteeing a kill when led against anything other then Sylveon. Mega hera can even 1v1 sylveon and cleanly ohko/2hko every other common BP member.

BP has legitimate counters people. Find them. Use them. You need an offensive duo and a sleep absorber at absolute most.

 

[ryan]

You never told me to stop making shitty posts. :(

If you have to do something, I agree that limiting the number of passers on a team would be the best way to go. You don't have to decide that any use of Baton Pass is anti-fun like you do with everything else you ban. I don't even use Baton Pass and think removing it entirely or even removing it from teams that have an Espeon or whatnot on it is a stupid idea.

The shitty posts comment wasn't directed towards you unless I deleted one of your posts (which I don't believe I did, but I deleted a fair number so who knows). I was just quoting your post to respond to it in particular. I'll cover the rest of your post with what follows.

What is so great about avoiding complex bans that's worth all this collateral damage? Unlike with Swagger, there is no questioning that Baton Pass by itself is not broken or uncompetitive, and there's many Pokemon that use it outside of BP chains.

I get where you're coming from, and I totally understand why you'd make that connection. Because Swagger, another move, was recently banned, it's hard not to compare the two. I don't see, however, what "all this collateral damage" would be referring to. Aside from full Baton Pass teams, where do you see the move Baton Pass being used? It lower tiers, some Pokemon occasionally use it as a scouting move (I'm thinking of Durant, Musharna, Celebi), but outside of that, it's a relatively unseen move. Yes, there will be collateral damage, but as I mentioned briefly in my previous post, this is an inevitable consequence of banning anything. Without Swagger, Liepard is relatively useless outside of NU and potentially RU. Without Deoxys-S and Deoxys-D in UU, offensive hazard-stacking teams take a hit.

Ultimately, a person's stance on this potential suspect or ban comes down to their ban philosophy: do you value the most simplistic ban or the ban that allows the most Pokemon to be viable? Both are important things to consider, and a nice balance of both is obviously ideal. To me, the most simplistic ban is usually—I took the other stance during the Assist + Prankster ban in NU at the end of last gen—going to be the better route to take. When the amount of Pokemon losing viability is virtually a fraction of one, considering that no Pokemon becomes completely unviable as collateral damage, I'm absolutely going to err on the side of a simpler ban.

 

[Mr. Mime]

It surprises me that there's still a group of people arguing that specific counters like Murkrow or Quagsire with Haze must be used to defeat Baton Pass, as it has been explained time and time again that not only are these not always effective, but also that a much more reliable approach is an offensive one: over the last few pages long lists of commonly used Pokémon can be found that are able to apply enough offensive pressure from the start (Azumarill, Mega-Charizard Y, Mega-Mawile, Mega-Pinsir, and Volcarona are all valid examples), successfully preventing a Baton Pass team from gaining any momentum from the get-go. Obviously these counters are not a stop to any Baton Pass team 100% of the time (Scolipede can stall out the five turns of sun Mega-Charizard has if it has both Protect and Substitute, then use Baton Pass to bring in Sylveon, or defeat it with Rock Slide, Zapdos will stop Mega-Pinsir etc.), but as for every playstyle, if a sure-fire counter for it is found, it will have to adapt, and this is what Baton Pass does as well.

One cannot expect a single Pokémon to consistently counter a team of six Pokémon.

What is yet to be decided is if those counters are considered effective enough, for many posters seem to not appreciate Baton Pass as a playstyle at all if they cannot dismiss it without much effort, the most obvious way seemingly being limiting the number of Pokémon on a team to know the move Baton Pass to three. I cannot believe that people would support a nerf like this for it doesn't make the playstyle of Baton pass more manageable; it makes it unusable!

Nerfing any playstyle beyond playability, even when said playstyle is unconventional and therefore tricky to counter, should be a last resort and not our first course of action.

I hold the opinion that if a ban/nerf is to be made, banning Scolipede for its ability to fulfill multiple functions in the team while occupying only a single moveslot is the optimal non-complex ban. Baton Pass teams turning to Ninjask as a replacement is not a problem, and is in fact what this ban tries to encourage: Ninjask does not have any utility other than boosting the speed stat (props to those who teach it Harden), and the team still has to include a different member to raise the defense stat (and possibly clean up Toxic Spikes), giving Baton Pass teams more difficulty achieving their boosts. Banning a Pokémon for its effectiveness in a specific team is not unheard of, as the example of Excadrill in the fifth generation shows us.

 

[Agent Gibbs]

Having a difficult time figuring out whether you are trolling or being serious, but I have not seen a BP team that runs a solid counter for magnezone, who is 100% OU viable, unlike murkrow or haze quagsire.

I have also provided a replay that shows megacham pretty much guaranteeing a kill when led against anything other then Sylveon. Mega hera can even 1v1 sylveon and cleanly ohko/2hko every other common BP member.

BP has legitimate counters people. Find them. Use them. You need an offensive duo and a sleep absorber at absolute most.

I'll try to elaborate more on this when I get home and don't have to type on my phone, but your opponent played so badly in those replays that it was painful to watch. There are certainly ways that your opponent could have minimized the damage taken from Magnezone and Mega Medicham, who are definitely not as hard to deal with as your replays made it seem.

 

[asgdf]

I don't see, however, what "all this collateral damage" would be referring to. Aside from full Baton Pass teams, where do you see the move Baton Pass being used? It lower tiers, some Pokemon occasionally use it as a scouting move (I'm thinking of Durant, Musharna, Celebi), but outside of that, it's a relatively unseen move.

Baton pass being used to pass boosts outside of full chains is definetely a thing, and quite a bunch of collateral damage there - Mew and Smeargle baton passing everything, Scolipede directly passing some speed to a slower mon, Volbeat passing Tail glow/Subs, Celebi passing NP, Smashpassing in general, Venomoth quiverpassing, Mienshao baton passing Subs and SD, the list goes on. All of those are fine in my opinion, and while I definetely do see your point, I would not want to see all of those banned if a complex ban avoids it. In my opinion, a cap on BP mons on a team really would be the best solution.

 

[Bent1ey]

I'm pretty surprised that such complex bans are being thrown around. If Scolipede or Espeon are really a problem for the meta, ban them. Why should we preserve pokemon that are overall hurting the meta?

If BP is a fair strategy that can be dealt with and deserves it's wins (this is my opinion), then don't change anything.

 

[Ninja Charizard]

It's not just Yanmega, it's Sharpedo and Scolipede too - and Ninjask. We can't ban these "because Speed Boost is broken" - first off, Yanmega and Sharpedo don't even get Baton Pass so they deserve to be left alone and not be dragged into this thread - and Ninjask/Scolipede doing some quickpassing is not broken at all. Why should we not put in the effort so as to ensure that bans are properly thought out? If we just "ban Speed Boost" outright, then that basically means we're admitting that we are too lazy to come up with a much better and more elegant solution.

you're probably right, and I'll not drag this any further, I'm just pointing out how easy it is for speed boost to cause problems to the metagame. Literally 60% of speed boosters are either broken, or enable a certain playstyle to become broken. I can see another thread like this being created in 2015 because of some pokemon who got speed boost andd broke the metagame. And again in the following year. And again every year, until the ou banlist is full of pokemon and clauses who were only necessary because of the existance of speed boost.

Is the preservation of sharpedo and yanmega really worth the trouble?

 

[Tesung]

To ban any single member of the bp chain is ridiculous, without the chain, they are all mediocre to bad mons. Scolipede by itself is a cool and underrated cleaner, a lead, or I guess a speed boost passer to another sweeper. None of which are broken . The problem is the chain

 

[Bent1ey]

To ban any single member of the bp chain is ridiculous, without the chain, they are all mediocre to bad mons. Scolipede by itself is a cool and underrated cleaner, a lead, or I guess a speed boost passer to another sweeper. None of which are broken . The problem is the chain

That's like saying that Gen V Excadrill was fair outside of Sand. Pokemon become broken by their interactions with the meta, outside those good niches they provide, pretty much any poke becomes fair.

 

[Kairyu_Gen1]

Thanks Treecko , nice to see there are moderators that know how to explain things better than I can.

I'm pretty surprised that such complex bans are being thrown around. If Scolipede or Espeon are really a problem for the meta, ban them. Why should we preserve pokemon that are overall hurting the meta?

If BP is a fair strategy that can be dealt with and deserves it's wins (this is my opinion), then don't change anything.

Be prepared to fight off Scolipede fan boys and the entire new generation of Smogonites.

I'm a little slow, but

Are we really going to dismiss Scolipede for instance because of it's effect on one particular team?

Why not?

Would anybody blink if we suspected deoxys? As a support mon, he can only really be considered maybe broken with a core devoted to protecting hazards and a team devoted to abusing it like HO. It'd probably get voted against again, as the meta has largely agreed that deosharp and similar cores are a positive contribution to the meta. Baton Pass is largely a negative one, so if people voted against a Scolipede ban, the only excuse they'd really have is that they want to avoid collateral, but that's not the way we've done things, and when we tried, Gen 5 happened. In order to ban everything bad for the meta, without any collateral damage, we'd have to implement several complex bans that would have to be tested and revised, and the more complex we make bans, the more people will support lame stuff like allowing Blaziken back in OU and UU with Blaze, and it'd all be tedious and kinda a waste of time. There's a reason we avoid complex bans, they don't get the job done like regular ones do, and overuse of them sets a bad precedent (not a slippery slope, as mods still know well enough to not get carried away, just gives a bad impression).

Now, just to clarify, I understand completely that Baton Pass is not the same as everybody using Mega Kangaskhan for easy wins. It's got a team element absent from almost all other ban situations, so if a complex ban like "no Magic Bounce + Baton Pass allowed!", I would vote yes every time. If another strange one that I wouldn't consider standard like "No more than 2 baton passers per team!" got suspected, again, I'd vote yes. This is a weird issue and might deserve a weird solution, but I think the first one suggests that a pokemon can have a ban worthy set, but isn't banned, which confuses me, and the second one kills a playing style for not requiring skill and being bad for the meta, when a single change would make it need skill, and be at least neutral to the meta.

Defining the root problem of what makes this "strategy" a problem is the key. If BP is inherently bad, either ban it, or limit its # of abusers per team. If the support Scolipede or Espeon (and her late game sweeping) are the problem, then I think we should ban them (only one, two would be overkill probably), or at least ban their ability to be on BP teams. I don't really see any other options, and like Treecko said, which you choose depends on your own philosophy.

 

[Vryheid]

you aren't supposed to hard counter baton pass

okay, since I apparently didn't emphasize enough the importance of prediction the last five times I've said this, allow me to reiterate:

you aren't supposed to hard counter baton pass

And that doesn't mean BP chains are in any way broken. Welcome to Pokemon, where number crunching and theorycrafting are not always enough to win you matches. Speaking of prediction, Baton Pass chains are ALWAYS at a disadvantage in the early game against a properly balanced OU team. They cannot directly punish the opposing player for making a bad switch, while one missed switch on their part can lead to a very much dead key teammate. It only takes one screwup to ruin a BP chain, whereas they MUST continually maintain a typing/stat boost advantage for at least 4-5 turns before they can think of trying to deal relevant damage back. If you mindlessly use supereffective attacks that they can easily predict and switch into, you are handing that advantage back to them on a silver platter.

There is no excuse for not running Taunt, Clear Smog/Haze or a phazing move on your team -this isn't Gen 1, I'd think this shit would be pretty much common sense by now. But if you're determined not to, you need to at least be running one of the many pressure tools that give BP teams a lot of trouble. Talonflame works, Mega Pinsir works, Mega Charizard Y works, and Aegislash (mixxed sets, anyways) works, among many other things. And guess what, they're all already top tier threats in the OU meta, so the argument that you HAVE to used some specialized counter which is only useful for dealing with them is a load of Daramuka dung.

On the subject of obscure answers to Baton Pass (because I find this subject amusing)- Trick Room with a Pursuit trapper can checkmate Espeon in a hurry, especially if that Trick Room user has status moves which can to force it out. Trick Room in general can be mighty annoyance to Baton Pass due to it's ability to force threats to take a super effective hit or give up on their boosts. Ironically I think a good chunk of RU teams could have an easy time shutting down OU Baton Pass teams due to the prevalence of the above move, Sableye, Smash-passing (yes this is a thing), Amoonguss, Escavalier, and Zoroark. If a decent RU team can easily handle it but some people's OU teams seriously can't, I think it's time for them to re-evaluate their teambuilding priorities.

 

[Tesung]

That's like saying that Gen V Excadrill was fair outside of Sand. Pokemon become broken by their interactions with the meta, outside those good niches they provide, pretty much any poke becomes fair.

It's not about the interractions with the meta, scolipede interacts fine with the meta, the problem is the interactions with it's own team

 

[Jukain]

It surprises me that there's still a group of people arguing that specific counters like Murkrow or Quagsire with Haze must be used to defeat Baton Pass, as it has been explained time and time again that not only are these not always effective, but also that a much more reliable approach is an offensive one: over the last few pages long lists of commonly used Pokémon can be found that are able to apply enough offensive pressure from the start (Azumarill, Mega-Charizard Y, Mega-Mawile, Mega-Pinsir, and Volcarona are all valid examples), successfully preventing a Baton Pass team from gaining any momentum from the get-go. Obviously these counters are not a stop to any Baton Pass team 100% of the time (Scolipede can stall out the five turns of sun Mega-Charizard has if it has both Protect and Substitute, then use Baton Pass to bring in Sylveon, or defeat it with Rock Slide, Zapdos will stop Mega-Pinsir etc.), but as for every playstyle, if a sure-fire counter for it is found, it will have to adapt, and this is what Baton Pass does as well.

One cannot expect a single Pokémon to consistently counter a team of six Pokémon.

What is yet to be decided is if those counters are considered effective enough, for many posters seem to not appreciate Baton Pass as a playstyle at all if they cannot dismiss it without much effort, the most obvious way seemingly being limiting the number of Pokémon on a team to know the move Baton Pass to three. I cannot believe that people would support a nerf like this for it doesn't make the playstyle of Baton pass more manageable; it makes it unusable!

Nerfing any playstyle beyond playability, even when said playstyle is unconventional and therefore tricky to counter, should be a last resort and not our first course of action.

I hold the opinion that if a ban/nerf is to be made, banning Scolipede for its ability to fulfill multiple functions in the team while occupying only a single moveslot is the optimal non-complex ban. Baton Pass teams turning to Ninjask as a replacement is not a problem, and is in fact what this ban tries to encourage: Ninjask does not have any utility other than boosting the speed stat (props to those who teach it Harden), and the team still has to include a different member to raise the defense stat (and possibly clean up Toxic Spikes), giving Baton Pass teams more difficulty achieving their boosts. Banning a Pokémon for its effectiveness in a specific team is not unheard of, as the example of Excadrill in the fifth generation shows us.

Numerous players, including myself, have mentioned reasons as to why BP is a cancerous playstyle that doesn't belong in OU because it is broken and unhealthy. When something is like that, we ban it. Ban Return on Mega Kanga, balanced, no? But we banned Mega Kanga. Same concept. We don't nerf broken stuff, we get rid of it. BP is not a competitive playstyle. I and numerous others couldn't care less that BP as a 'playstyle' is removed. Your claims that these offensive Pokemon are doing crap to stop BP have already been refuted on dozens of occasions throughout this thread. And if you don't consistently win vs BP, you consistently lose -- the key difference between this and other playstyles. This is unhealthy. Banning Scolipede just causes unnecessary collateral damage for a balanced Pokemon, and Ninjask is still fine for BP. This is frankly a silly move that doesn't attack the problem at its core, Baton Pass chains.

That's like saying that Gen V Excadrill was fair outside of Sand. Pokemon become broken by their interactions with the meta, outside those good niches they provide, pretty much any poke becomes fair.

You're missing the point just to be stupidly conservative...Scolipede is not the problem, it is the chain.

I'm going to wager that suspecting Pokemon is not on the table here. It doesn't attack the problem and causes unnecessary collateral. Seriously it isn't even worth bringing up.

Furthermore, every single attacker can be beaten with Vap + Sylveon boosting. Every single one, given you don't play like a retard. And Zapdos helps on this front vs Flyers. It's been proven that Haze is barely even a counter, and Taunt/phazing is a joke Vryheid they have Espeon. Clear Smog they have Subs. Try again.

 

[Bent1ey]

You're missing the point just to be stupidly conservative...Scolipede is not the problem, it is the chain.

I'm going to wager that suspecting Pokemon is not on the table here. It doesn't attack the problem and causes unnecessary collateral. Seriously it isn't even worth bringing up.

Hyper Offensive and full Stall used to have bad matchups against certain playstyles. Bad matchups are a natural event in any metagame, if one particular playstyle is too overpowering (like Hyper Offense in the Gen V Deoxys days) then we nerf the playstyle. If a part of that style continues to be a problem, we keep banning pokemon until the metagame balances itself. There is no point in building an artificial complex ban over a few minor interactions.

 

[WebBowser]

I'll try to elaborate more on this when I get home and don't have to type on my phone, but your opponent played so badly in those replays that it was painful to watch. There are certainly ways that your opponent could have minimized the damage taken from Magnezone and Mega Medicham, who are definitely not as hard to deal with as your replays made it seem.

Absolutely correct in that my opponent prolly could have avoided the magnezone 6-0 and possibly even avoided losing a mon to megacham (not sure if megacham could 1v1 sylv). However, most teams are not just one mon + a sleep absorber. If magnezone takes out 2 or 3 mons as opposed to 6-0ing a BP team, that BP team is absolutely crippled and it would be a tremendous feat if the chain got restarted. For mega medicham, all I really needed was a safe sylveon swap in and I could send in cham later to hit things some more. I definitely want to hear what you say, but I also want to make clear that I am proposing mons that are capable of leading into most/all of the opponent's BP team and can come out with a kill, not necessarily 6-0 the entire team.

P.S. I want to do some more testing (I feel like this thread has been relatively lacking in solid data on checks and counters). Any suggestions of a BP team user that is willing to allow me to test random anti-leads with? It's startlingly difficult to find them on the PS chatrooms.

P.S.S. I am defending BP for 2 reasons. 1. Unlike swagplay, one cannot simply hax his way past checks and coutners in BP. So for BP to be broken, the checks and counters would either have to not exist or be so obscure that they are impractical. I am mostly trying to disprove the latter. 2. I have found that the majority of the community is very hostile to BP and I fear that BP may be banned without a legitimate attempt to defend it. I am trying to at least give BP a fair argument to stand on (a lot of the anti-ban arguments have been rather bad, and yet these weak arguments have been the ones that the bro-ban side has been focusing on).

P.S.S.S. I am trying my absolute best to mount this defense in the most legitimate way possible. If there are any flaws in my arguments or methods, please let me know immediately. BP deserves a valid defense before being banned.