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

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Karxrida

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If Espeon does happen to be banned (I'm neither saying that it will or that it should be), it would really be your own fault if you don't run whirlwind or taunt, two moves with a decent selection of pokemon that learn it. We shouldn't make full BP non-existant or impossible to use, we should just make it harder to use (such as a Magic Bounce+Speed Boost ban so that you have to chose between Espeon and Scoliopede). Also there is no freeze clause in effect.
You do realize not every team has room for a Phazer. This is especially true for Hyper Offense, whose M.O. is "beat the living fuck out of whatever is in front of me".
 
You do realize not every team has room for a Phazer. This is especially true for Hyper Offense, whose M.O. is "beat the living fuck out of whatever is in front of me".
Taunt also exists, and is extremely prevalent on HO teams. There are more good pokemon that can learn taunt and/or whirlwind than good pokemon that can counter Azumarill or Mawile. Anyways I really don't think Espeon is going to be banned (and it shouldn't be), I was just replying to someone who was saying that BP would still be broken without it (it wouldn't be).
 
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· Is Baton Pass (with specific reference to full Baton Pass teams) a problem for the development of the metagame?

Baton Pass since generation 3 has been a viable strategy, but has always been manageable due to the existence of Haze, Whirlwind, and Roar. Whirlwind and Roar are the best of those options and now the existence of Dragon Tail is also a decent option. So the concept of Baton Pass is not extremely detrimental. However the existence of Magic Bounce completely not only blocks, but punishes the aggressor for trying to counter their opponent’s strategy.


· If so, what elements, in particular, do you think are pushing Baton Pass over the edge?

As I began to state, Magic Bounce is the only reason as to why Baton Pass has become unmanageable. Only 3 Fully evolved Pokemon have the ability Magic Bounce. These Pokemon are Xatu, Espeon, and Mega Absol. Xatu is rarely seen in OU so it is beyond the point. Mega Absol is also not seen in OU very often, but unlike Xatu it has Baton Pass. Therefore Mega Absol may be a potential offender in the question of Baton Pass. This leaves Espeon who is the main offender here.


· Do you believe that banning individual Pokémon (such as Espeon/Scolipede) would make Baton Pass manageable?

Despite what I ended with in my last statements, I do not believe that individual Pokemon should be banned in this scenario. Scolipede is for the most part only a bulkier and more playable Ninjask and Ninjask has always been easy to deal with. Therefore Scolipede should not be touched. Espeon, even though it is the biggest offender here, should also not be touched. Outside of its niche on Baton Pass teams because of the Magic Bounce Baton Pass combo it is worthless. It is inferior to other fast special attackers and is unworthy of being banned. To answer the question directly though, banning Espeon would likely not make Baton Pass more manageable because Mega Absol may easily be able to take its place.


· Would you support a blanket ban on the move Baton Pass?

No, I would not. As I stated at the beginning of my response Baton Pass has been manageable without the existence of Magic Bounce due to the easily splashable moves in Roar and Whirlwind.


· 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.

No, I would not. Complex bans make the game more complicated for brand new players and can easily turn new players off to getting into competitive play.


From my response I propose a different angle to handle Baton Pass. I believe that the best course of action is to ban Magic Bounce and only Magic Bounce. As I stated only 3 fully evolved Pokemon have access to the ability and only 1 sees higher levels of play consistently, Espeon. Espeon’s only reason for existing in the OU metagame is its role on Baton Pass teams with Magic Bounce. Banning Magic Bounce will not adversely affect the metagame whatsoever except for making Baton Pass significantly less consistent. This course of action would essentially ban Mega Absol because its only ability is Magic Bounce, which could easily replace Espeon on Baton Pass teams if only Espeon is banned.

In conclusion, the best course of action to deal with Baton Pass is to ban Magic Bounce.
 

Punchshroom

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Time to chime in.

I see people dismissing Mega Scizor and Mega Mawile as being redundant on BP teams due to their Fire weakness with Pede and the fact that they share the same boosting moves. You do realize these Megas are on the team to block Trick / Switcheroo, and to a lesser extent Knock Off, right? They can also smack stuff hard with minimal boosts in case things get dicey.

Also as I read through specific countermeasures against BP (Imprison BP Musharna @_@), I saw this:
One cannot expect a single Pokémon to consistently counter a team of six Pokémon.
This is easily the biggest highlight as to what makes Baton Pass teams a problem: you are using one Pokemon to fight at one time, but the opponent essentially has access to all six at once. They hardly lose any sort of momentum when they make their switch. Worse yet, they can tweak one of their 12 available moveslots (the other 12 are Baton Pass + stat-boosting move) to try and counter your counter. Roar Mega Gyarados? What if their Vaporeon happens to be carrying Roar itself, or Megahorn on Scolipede, making it very difficult for Mega Gyara to safely Roar against anything bar Mr. Mime (can learn Taunt) on a BP team? Prankster Taunt only really works on the first few turns, because any defensive or offensive boosts that have been gathered would either allow the chain to hold out, or jeopardize the Taunter's chances of surviving to do it again. Mental Herb on BPers known not to attack, such as Scolipede, Mr. Mime, and Smeargle, can also harass the Taunter, as it allows them to keep their boosts and pass to something more threatening to the Taunter.

Now I've seen a lot of agreement in limiting the number of Baton Passers on a team, and I can see why. It doesn't kill the strategy, while at the same time facing a 2-3 Pokemon army is much less daunting than facing a team of 6. But limiting a specific number of Pokemon per team is a new kind of ban, so we have to tread carefully; one cannot say for sure if 2 or 3 Baton Passers per team is more optimal as of right now. I'll wait to see how this pans out.
 
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Alright, As an Old player of pokemon in General, as well as finding this new stuff, I can give my Two Potions.

  • Is Baton Pass (with specific reference to full Baton Pass teams) a problem for the development of the metagame?
That is entirely relative to the amount of BP teams to Counter-BP Teams To Regular teams.
  • If so, what elements, in particular, do you think are pushing Baton Pass over the edge?
I commonly run a odd mix of things with no real Point, because they are my favorites. Sure I ignore Meta for the most part because I like to use my Babies. However, with the amount of BP teams Im Fighting, I should start. What I see as the major issues that make BP a problem is A) Magic Bounce And B) Speed Boost Scolipede. The Combination of these two are just too effective, making it practically pointless to fight them and have fun.
  • Do you believe that banning individual Pokémon (such as Espeon/Scolipede) would make Baton Pass manageable?
Banning Entire Pokemon to only Ubers has always frustrated me, as it prevented easily countered pokemon with good move sets from being used.
No, I don't think this would work.
  • Would you support a blanket ban on the move Baton Pass?
Baton Pass as a Move is fine. I personally Enjoyed using it to Shift Off-Type Substitutes to Cover Glass Cannons for easy kills. However, No, Blanket Banning would not be an effective Solution, as It removes an Entire section of gameplay that can be enjoyable.
  • 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.
Complex Bans, Eh? Well, Considering Magic Bounce basically removes the ability to use Counter BP and Speed Boost on a already Tanky Pokemon like Scolipede, I would Just Ban the Combination of MB-Espeon+BP and SpeedBoostScoli + BP. You already have an Effective Option of Ninjask.

This is just me Posting as a General Player of Pokemon.
 
From my response I propose a different angle to handle Baton Pass. I believe that the best course of action is to ban Magic Bounce and only Magic Bounce. As I stated only 3 fully evolved Pokemon have access to the ability and only 1 sees higher levels of play consistently, Espeon. Espeon’s only reason for existing in the OU metagame is its role on Baton Pass teams with Magic Bounce. Banning Magic Bounce will not adversely affect the metagame whatsoever except for making Baton Pass significantly less consistent. This course of action would essentially ban Mega Absol because its only ability is Magic Bounce, which could easily replace Espeon on Baton Pass teams if only Espeon is banned.

In conclusion, the best course of action to deal with Baton Pass is to ban Magic Bounce.
I disagree with that statement, as Magic Bounce is often used to keep hazards and status moves away from the user's side of the field even without Baton Pass.

I do agree that Magic Bounce/Baton Pass is be overwhelming to deal with, in part because its "counters" can be quickly removed (Clear Smog? Good luck switching in). If any, I'd rather have Magic Bounce/Baton Pass Ban simply because it doesn't make BP teams so easy to keep defensive momentum.
 
Also as I read through specific countermeasures against BP (Imprison BP Musharna @_@), I saw this:This is easily the biggest highlight as to what makes Baton Pass teams a problem: you are using one Pokemon to fight at one time, but the opponent essentially has access to all six at once. They hardly lose any sort of momentum when they make their switch. Worse yet, they can tweak one of their 12 available moveslots (the other 12 are Baton Pass + stat-boosting move) to try and counter your counter. Roar Mega Gyarados? What if their Vaporeon happens to be carrying Roar itself, or Megahorn on Scolipede, making it very difficult for Mega Gyara to safely Roar against anything bar Mr. Mime (can learn Taunt) on a BP team? Prankster Taunt only really works on the first few turns, because any defensive or offensive boosts that have been gathered would either allow the chain to hold out, or jeopardize the Taunter's chances of surviving to do it again. Mental Herb on BPers known not to attack, such as Scolipede, Mr. Mime, and Smeargle, can also harass the Taunter, as it allows them to keep their boosts and pass to something more threatening to the Taunter.
The 1v6 argument is a great point. Keeping momentum while switching is the same reason VoltTurn is popular. I also respect your reasoning concerning Roar and Taunt. Yet I still feel that Haze is not appreciated enough when it comes to breaking a Baton Pass chain.

People have discussed Unaware Quagsire as the most viable user, yet Haze has good distribution beyond this. Blastoise and Milotic learn it through breeding; Vaporeon by leveling. Dusclops and Cofagrigus, both solid defensive walls, learn Haze. Any of these Pokemon can take a hit and disrupt the chain before an offensive boost. Crobat, which is known for it's blazing fast Taunt, can learn Haze. If you are desperate to get the move off quickly, Prankster Murkrow learns it. While these may not be "typical" or "standard" movesets, please realize that there are reliable ways to break Baton Pass chains if you think outside the OU box.
 
I don't understand the logic of preferring a Magic Bounce + Baton Pass complex ban instead of just ban Espeon. This is devolving into a popularity contest about people who don't want to lose anything and will resort to any amount of complex banning to do it.

I also noticed the fact that Iron Defense/Acid Armor/Amnesia ban got swept under the rug by people saying "banning boosting moves is ridiculous", while it's easy to realize that moves that greatly increase defenses are pretty uncompetitive outside of Baton Pass. We got some posts saying "Shell Smash/Quiver Dance/Curse are good!", which is true... But none of those moves boost defenses greatly and it's entirely besides the point. Without the ability to quickly improve their defensive stats BP chains are harder to set up and the loss from those bannings would be marginal. The banning looks clumsy, but some clumsy clauses have been voted before.
 
Why are people wanting to ban Espeon(etc) just because of this? Surely we are past the point where complex bans are shocking. Espeon has many roles beside being a Baton Passer- such as being a very useful offensive Magic Bouncer in certain teams. Why? There would be no point when one can easily ban Baton Pass + Magic Bounce. That's the major problem here, and as such it should be dealt with. You don't bulldoze a building because one of the tenants is being unruly. You take out the tenant. No need to go with super bans.

I think it's quite obvious by now that a full Baton Pass team is overcentralising the metagame. There is simply no point in banning Espeon, better to ban the actual problem. Hell I'd even be perfectly alright with banning Espeon and Scolipede with Baton Pass on the same team.
 
Anyway, if you can disrupt the Baton Pass chain by resetting the boosts, even if they can "keep setting up" as you put it, then their strategy is worthless. You can directly attack the opponent once they lose their boosts and wear them down as they scramble to regain them. If you get any entry hazards set up, then the forced switching to keep trying to boost is going to wear the opponent down. (And yes, I realize Magic Bounce can stop entry hazards)
This is easier said than done. Especially if your opponent is behind a sub. Besides Sylveon usually beats any viable hazer 1v1.
 
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 :)
I've not only played against Baton Pass since Gen 3, but used it myself. I'm well aware of its strengths and weaknesses. I have an adequate, sufficient knowledge of both Baton Pass archetypes, and the metagame we are discussing. You hypocritically call me out as condescending, yet use the same tactic yourself.

First, relinquish the preconceived notions. Secondly, argue against my points, or do not discuss with me.

So let's establish a few things. 1. Scraping up impractical and dedicated checks offers nothing to this thread. It doesn't propose any solution. Many debaters seem to think scraping up a niche counter usually from RU and NU means nothing is wrong here and all debate should cease. 2. Applying intentions upon debaters is no argument, and offers nothing to the discussion. (i.e. claiming players want Baton Pass banned because we don't like it or can't handle it.)

I do not advocate a blanket ban, and only see a complex ban if no other solution can be reached.

My points:

Due to the nature of Speed Boost Scolipede, a state of autonomy is introduced. Scolipede can achieve 2-3 Speed Boosts trivially. Where he might be countered by a special lead, the Baton Pass player simply won't lead with Scolipede, or will otherwise switch out. Scolipede is not only able to boost up to Speed freely or trivially, but either Defence or Attack as well.

The ban of Scolipede is the only simple solution, without a convoluted or complex ban or Baton Pass clause.

A Suspect Test should be instigated, and a Suspect Test would show this state of autonomy I've mentioned several times.
 

haunter

Banned deucer.
Vertex, I've made pretty clear that suspect testing Baton Pass (or its components) won't come down to a community vote. We'll take into consideration the discussion that is currently taking place in this thread, then decide on our own.

Also, I'd like those who're suggesting to limit the move Baton Pass to 2-3 members on any given team to elaborate on their proposal. Why would 3 baton passers be acceptable and 4-5 wouldn't? From what I've seen, full Baton Pass teams need 6 dedicated baton passers to be successfull and every Pokémon is pretty much essential to set up Espeon for the sweep.
 
Why would 3 baton passers be acceptable and 4-5 wouldn't? From what I've seen, full Baton Pass teams need 6 dedicated baton passers to be successfull and every Pokémon is pretty much essential to set up Espeon for the sweep.
5 isn't any different from just having a final receiver of all the buffs to sweep or a joke pokemon to later brag that you can sweep with a Magikarp or Kriketune. I still say 4 is probably a better starting point and it would be nice if someone encouraged people to test of 3 at the same time (just to make sure).
 

Albacore

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At the moment, this thread seems to be divided between people who want to ban Baton Pass+Speed Boost/Magic Bounce and people who want to limit P to 2 or 3 users per team.
A few people have raised the valid point that, since Scoliopede and Espeon are what make Baton Pass what it is, why not deal with them instead of the rest of the team?

Well, if we leave Baton Pass teams legal but stop Espeon and Scoliopede from being in them, they may be easier to handle, but will still be matchup-based and will still have prefect prediction, which are both part of what makes BP uncompetetive. Even without the two main pillars of BP teams, they are still not fun to face, they still require little skill, and they can still secure a victory at turn 1. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure that after a while, we'll find the optimal BP team without Espeon and Scoliopede, so that doesn't even solve the problem of there being only one BP team worth using.
Espeon and Scoliopede, however, can be handled in a semi-BP team without too much difficulty, or being matchup-based or even having perfect prediction, and can be fitted on a large number of teams.

Basically, Espeon and Scoliopede are what make BP teams good, but full BP teams are still uncompetetive by nature.
 
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I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this already, but I'd like to reference a high-level match that in which one player used Baton Pass.
C0sta vs CyberOdin

This was a SPL match where C0sta used a full Baton Pass team and loss. However, if you watched the replay, you'll be able to see that C0sta was able to set a Baton Pass chain very easily, despite CyberOdin packing a phazer (Skamory), a powerful mixed attacker (Kyurem-B) and a very bulky mixed wall (Chansey). Only after 18 turns, C0sta was able to set-up to +3 Speed, +3 Defense, +4 Special Attack, and +4 Special Defense. This is because C0sta was able to set-up speed and defense boosts very early on with Scolipede, allowing him to easily maneuver around what threats to the Baton Pass Chain CyberOdin might have. In fact, C0sta probably would have won if CyberOdin didn't get a double paralyze on C0sta's Sylveon. Only because he was lucky did CyberOdin win.

This replay basically shows how Baton Pass is very simple to play, but also can be very successful, even against good OU players like CyberOdin. I feel that if we let full Baton Pass teams grow unchecked, eventually they will become very popular, because they are so easy to use and can win a large majority of matches. A metagame in which Baton Pass is one of the dominant playstyles will be terrible to play against, as it severely restricts team-building options and forces people to use Pokemon whose moves are basically dedicated to countering Baton Pass. Although Baton Pass has some checks/counters, the most effective ones are relatively obscure (ex. Haze) and more common ones like Taunt and Roar can be easily played around. Therefore, full Baton Pass teams need to be limited in some form. Otherwise, people will have to mainly rely on luck to beat them. I personally favor limiting Baton Pass to 3 Pokemon, as if more than half your team is using Baton Pass, then your team is most likely a team whose goal is to use a long Baton Pass chain to beat the opponent. I'm open to other options though such as banning Stored Power + Baton Pass.

C05ta CyberOdin - if i misrepresented you, sorry about that. Let me know and I'll fix that. I'd like to here your thoughts too.
I've never been less mad over losing to hax. I think full BP teams are cancer and have no place in a competitive metagame. I'd love to see a magic bounce + bp ban.

I went into that match completely unprepared, without a team and without playing/testing anything between my matches. I just brought the dumbest team I had and I should have won, that's pretty messed up.
 
Also, I'd like those who're suggesting to limit the move Baton Pass to 2-3 members on any given team to elaborate on their proposal. Why would 3 baton passers be acceptable and 4-5 wouldn't? From what I've seen, full Baton Pass teams need 6 dedicated baton passers to be successfull and every Pokémon is pretty much essential to set up Espeon for the sweep.
If the cap was 4-5, BP teams could easily get rid of a slot thats non-essential (Vaporeon/Zapdos) and still the match would more than likely be in their favour. with 3, BP teams would have to get rid of a crucial link in the chain and their effectiveness would hence be reduced dramatically.
 

Albacore

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Also, I'd like those who're suggesting to limit the move Baton Pass to 2-3 members on any given team to elaborate on their proposal. Why would 3 baton passers be acceptable and 4-5 wouldn't? From what I've seen, full Baton Pass teams need 6 dedicated baton passers to be successfull and every Pokémon is pretty much essential to set up Espeon for the sweep.
The 4 most, and arguably only, important members of a BP team are Scoliopede, Espeon, Sylveon, and Vaporeon. Anything else is just there for insurance and countering BP counters. For instance, Zapdos is for Flyspam, Smeargle for Mold Breaker Roar, and Mr. Mime for Perish Song. A BP team can be brought down to 4 members and lose nothing vital.

In fact, I think that it could be broken even with only 3 members, since I'm honestly don't know why Vaporeon is so important to BP teams, but I may be missing something.
 
The 4 most, and arguably only, important members of a BP team are Scoliopede, Espeon, Sylveon, and Vaporeon. Anything else is just there for insurance and countering BP counters. For instance, Zapdos is for Flyspam, Smeargle for Mold Breaker Roar, and Mr. Mime for Perish Song. A BP team can be brought down to 4 members and lose nothing vital.

In fact, I think that it could be broken even with only 3 members, since I'm honestly don't know why Vaporeon is so important to BP teams, but I may be missing something.
Vaporeon is pretty important for a good baton pass core since Scolipede's typing isn't great defensively and its bulk isn't amazing, while Vaporeon's type is great defensively and its bulk is very respectable - this ensures more solid means of getting +2 defense boosts, while also packing roar if the opposing lead Pokemon threatens to set up with the baton pass team (for example, Bellyzurill) or even sub. I'd estimate that Vaporeon helps baton pass teams deal with about as many things as Sylveon does, but obviously I don't have a number.

I mainly agree with Danilo though, in that only allowing 2 members is best - since speed booster/iron defence+bouncer/calm mind+(some other booster) screws over the other team if they have the right (some other booster), and exacerbates the "matchup dependent" aspect of it that is undesirable/uncompetitive/unskilled; and also paraphrasing what I think Jukain said - if we're going to nerf baton pass because it's cancerous, really nip it in the bud to the point where we don't have to revisit it.
 
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Psych Up is a legitimate way of taking care of Baton Pass teams, as it can copy all the stat changes and thus render the opponent's work wasted - and it has pretty good distribution too.
 

Pyritie

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Psych Up is a legitimate way of taking care of Baton Pass teams, as it can copy all the stat changes and thus render the opponent's work wasted - and it has pretty good distribution too.
There are many "counters" to BP teams just on their own -- the problem is that almost all of them are dead weight outside of countering BP teams
 

RandomPlayer

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There are many "counters" to BP teams just on their own -- the problem is that almost all of them are dead weight outside of countering BP teams
The reason Baton Pass teams (full chains) are few is because they are hard to pull off. It has enough things to deal with anyway . You know a baton pass team straight away in team preview . Just send in your two hardest hitting mons at it asap and you'll be mostly fine. Especially since at the beginning of the match the chain is frail until it sets uo its defense boosts. With sound moves passing subs and infiltrator and new priority moves , it is harder to pull off full chains now than it was in gen 5. Baton pass only really gained Scolipede and Mew is far superior than sylveon on full chains. ( Seriously, idk why people use that crap over mew). Sticky web destroys BP chains. Mega Hera and breloom kill bp chains early. So does Cloyster and genesect.Mega Zard smashes stuff.And so does Mega banette. And Mega Scizor and literally every strong mon with a neutral priority( Banette is probably a niche).Mega Pinsir , Spooky Plate/Lo Aegis etc etc. Literally every fast mon/priority user. Similar to letting a sweeper set up , the chain becomes unbreakable if it sets up too. With Overcoat's new buff and Grass type's immunity to spore , you have more options to counter Baton Pass than before. Also you have broken Prankster Thundy-I which is a hard counter to bp , until Lightningrod Zapdos comes out that is.
The only teams it can beat with little effort would be stall. As most stall teams I have seen are generally slow based and setting up ingrain is relatively easy.
And yes , if you run washtom for Mega Pinsir/Talon etc might as well run something for Baton Pass too
If anything , Baton Pass got worse in Gen 6 , gaining nothing more than a better ninjask.
Learn to counter
Also , Unaware does not ignore Stored Power boosts so quag/clef wont help you vs it .. you have plenty of other stuff anyway.


And most of the mons I listed are not rare/dead weight / not viable / saying that would only lessen your credibility
 
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RandomPlayer Sylveon>Mew because it is immune to dragon tail and basically fucks Lati@s. Genesect is banned and as explained before Charizard Y gets stalled out of Fire Blasts from Scolipede and DD Zard X has trouble in general because no matter how hard you set up with DD Scolipede will have at best case be equal in speed with Scolipede, he'll sub+BP before your Zard is able to get past +1 setting up occurs, (assuming this BP player knows how to play) send out Smeargle spore your ass send out Vaporeon Iron Defense your ass and uhh tell me what you do then that isn't proceed to get swept please. :\
 
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Honestly, would Baton Pass actually be a thing if Espeon wasn't part of the chain? I'm not necessarily endorsing that we ban Espeon, but BP with Scolipede would be pretty easy to check if there was no Espeon to bounce back Taunt and phazing (though if Scolipede itself had Taunt, it'd be very different). I remember BP in gen V, and it was actually a pretty legit strategy--the main problems it had were patched up pretty nicely by the introduction of the Fairy type. Really, it'd still be pretty potent even without Scolipede as long as you still have Espeon.

Basically, taking away Scolipede inconveniences the playstyle, but taking away Espeon kills it. The two Pokemon are on two totally different levels of importance. I guess it depends on whether or not you want Baton Pass to still exist as a slightly more manageable form (but still very threatening), or remove it completely.

On a personal note, I'm still rather apathetic as to whether or not slow pass is nerfed in some way. If it gets banned, that just means I don't have to run a Taunt + Swords Dance Talonflame anymore.
 
Agent Gibbs First off, thank you for taking the time to explain all of that. However, I still believe that there has been a lack of research into counters for BP and that this research is needed in order to make an informed decision on whether or not BP is something that needs a nerf. Can you (or anyone really) get me in contact with a BP player who actually knows what they are doing so that I can conduct legitimate research on this? Apparently BP is not so brainless that I can just find some random shmuck on PS and ask him to fight me with a BP team (sorry solosislover, I still appreciate what you did). At the moment, I am simply unconvinced and I would like to remedy that.

And yes, I am volunteering to play against BP, repeatedly, because everyone else apparently finds this sort of team completely unfun to play against (not gonna argue that one). I want to figure out if there exists a way to counter BP teams without putting undue stress on teambuilding. I feel that if I can find such a way, the anti-ban arguments would be strengthened and we would have a more productive suspect test. If I have any reading comprehension at all, BP teams are considered harmful to the meta due to the lack of counterplay available to the opponent and the lack of teambuilding options to work around it as opposed to the ability to hax past legitimate counterplay options (ie: evasion, swagplay). I think that the latter could potentially be alleviated if someone bothered to do some research into possible counters and checks to a BP team (I haven't even started looking at potential cores, and I still have good hopes for magnezone). And if I can figure out any sort of common pattern between multiple checks / counters, then maybe I can address the former as well.

TL;DR All I want is a BP player who actually knows what they are doing who is willing to spend some time letting me try some random stuff with him. Please PM me or find me on PS or something so we can meet up.
I support this idea. A great part of the discussion on previous pages as composedd of "pokemon x is good against bp", " no it isn't", "yes it is". I feel like it's impossible to get a completely unbiased opinion on bp, even from the best players, and from either the ban or anti-ban sides, because everybody has their different experiences on it. Experience is useful but we can't really determine the viability of proposed counter based on player experience only. Actual testing need to be done, either by doing battles (the ideal thing) or running calculations, and then presenting those to be analysed by the posters of this thread. And I'm not talking only about the situational counters, or the (in)famous haze quagaire, but also the wallbreakers that me and other people have proposed many times, such as gardevoir and thundurus.

Someone please help this guy. There is science to be done.
 
I hate the notion being put forth "I shouldn't have to carry a poke designated as a baton pass counter". Why not? You can't limit the meta based on making team building easier for you. Besides, with as many setup sweepers as there are in the tier, these pokes are far from dead weight. I run a mega banette to help take down baton pass teams. (If I ever even encounter one, they're not like the plague) His biggest use came in non baton battles when people were trying to set up. ...Which is every battle, so this whole notion that they are only good for one thing is completely false.

The point has also been put forth that a player accumulated +14 over 18 turns. I know a handful that can get up to 12 in 6 turns and a few that can get there in 4.

In a nutshell, they are impossible to beat with what has been accepted as standard. Maybe it's time to redefine standard. Counters have been put forth. If they are to be ignored, fine, I don't run full baton, so it won't hinder me. But the decisions made by this site have become increasingly indefensible. I believe in what we do here, I have agreed with all of the bans thus far and have argued tirelessly to that effect. Swagger was a tough one, but I came around pretty quickly based on there being no counters at all and the utter lack of skill. But baton pass, to be really good, requires a lot of skill and prediction. A decision to nerf this is going to cause a lot of already disenfranchised players to leave.

A ways back I suggested a solution of banning protect and speed boost, because that, imo is what makes this chain the toughest to beat. It was either missed our ignored, but nonetheless, I'll say it again.

Tl:dr - My solution, that keeps baton pass intact and puts a nerf on scolipede from getting the automatic boost is to ban speed boost and protect.

Make no mistake, I don't support any bans, but this is a compromise. This is America, where we pound each other until people get tired and accept a crappy alternative.
 
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