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

[Hiphiphooray]

If you think stall runs Curse Pokemon, then you must not play stall. The only thing that is even semi viable as a check to BP is Haze Quagsire, which is stupidly redundant and only used to combat BP. Not only that but not every stall team has Quagsire on it at all. Another thing that I think is funny is that Denisss himself said that Haze Quagsire doesn't even work as a counter since it can do nothing back to Baton Pass teams and can be destroyed by Sylveon. Stall and balance I would say are the playstyles that do worst against BP, although HO will often try to set up alongside BP only to be Encored and set up on further.

Deoxys-S is a very strong counter to Baton Pass with Knock Off, Psycho Boost and Taunt. This can perform well on Stall.
Red Card Foretress already exists on some Stall teams.
Whimscott can be abused on Stall teams.
Crobat can be used to Quickly Taunt / Defog / Haze. It's also got good defensive typing for stall teams.
Quagsire can run haze effectively.
Any spin blocker can bring Curse! Trevenant is a big one here. Chandelure is another great spin blocker who can learn haze or 2hko the entire BP team with Infiltrator.
Sableye is great on Stall teams, as well as several other prankster users.
Tentacruel is used tons on stall teams and can learn haze.

I'm not sure how Haze on Quagsire doesn't auto win. Sure if you let Sylveon set up then it will kill you. But if you just spam Haze from the start you pretty much win...

 

[Albacore]

But isn't stall already the most viable type of team to have a Hazer or Mold Breaker Roar? Stall also should be able to use Curse and Pranksters like Whimscott viably. Red Card also works great on entry hazard dependent stall teams. Stall, of all styles, should find it very easy to adapt to an influx of Baton Pass teams!

What Halcyon. said, plus the fact that Mold Breaker Gyarados is nearly never seen on Stall teams, and nearly never runs Roar, and most BP teams have Ingrain Smeragle anyway so Mold Breaker Roar is irrelevant in many different ways (and don't get me started on Stall Haxorus and Hawlucha).

Red Card is also irrelevant since it doesn't activate on an OHKO and Ingrain stops it.

 

[radianthero156]

actually, not only haze is a terrible move on quagsire, haze quagsire is also a terrible counter. here is a replay of the number #1 guy in the ladder (Dauude Sandstorm) using a haze quagsire team vs a BP team (and still losing): http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-110739069

even then, stall nowadays is based on unaware mons with defensive cores, nothing to do with this bullshit of haze / red card / curse / whimsicott, so invalid argument.

 

[Halcyon.]

Deoxys-S is a very strong counter to Baton Pass with Knock Off, Psycho Boost and Taunt. This can perform well on Stall.
Red Card Foretress already exists on some Stall teams.
Whimscott can be abused on Stall teams.
Crobat can be used to Quickly Taunt / Defog / Haze. It's also got good defensive typing for stall teams.
Quagsire can run haze effectively.
Any spin blocker can bring Curse! Trevenant is a big one here. Chandelure is another great spin blocker who can learn haze or 2hko the entire BP team with Infiltrator.
Sableye is great on Stall teams, as well as several other prankster users.
Tentacruel is used tons on stall teams and can learn haze.

I'm not sure how Haze on Quagsire doesn't auto win. Sure if you let Sylveon set up then it will kill you. But if you just spam Haze from the start you pretty much win...

Quagsire is literally the only OU stall viable Pokemon you mentioned. Are you maybe mistaking this with a UU thread ?_?

 

[Hiphiphooray]

Quagsire is literally the only OU stall viable Pokemon you mentioned. Are you maybe mistaking this with a UU thread ?_?

This OU viable is becoming a Joke. They are OU because we deem them OU. If Baton Pass is such a problem, then new pokemon able to beat Baton Pass should probably become OU, right? 'OU viable' depends on usage statistics, not your favorite pokemon right now...

even then, stall nowadays is based on unaware mons with defensive cores, nothing to do with this bullshit of haze / red card / curse / whimsicott, so invalid argument.

If you look by at my original question, I was saying that Stall could learn to adapt easily. I'm not saying they run these now, but they could incorperate them easily.

 

[Albacore]

I'm not sure how Haze on Quagsire doesn't auto win. Sure if you let Sylveon set up then it will kill you. But if you just spam Haze from the start you pretty much win...

Removing the boosts is far from an auto-win since the BP user can just set up all over again. Besides, Quagsire is 2HKO'd by Sylveon's Hyper Voice and can't do anything back to it. If anything, Clefable is the best answer to BP Stall teams have.

 

[Hiphiphooray]

Removing the boosts is far from an auto-win since the BP user can just set up all over again. Besides, Quagsire is 2HKO'd by Sylveon's Hyper Voice and can't do anything back to it. If anything, Clefable is the best answer to BP Stall teams have.

Sylveon can be poisoned and gets hit hard by EQ. After a Toxic Quagsire can just recover spam until it switches out, at which point it spams haze.

 

[Dope Boi Magic]

Why does everyone here assume that haze quagsire is automatically bad? Yes it ignores stat boosts and that is why I think it is perfect for haze. Switch in quagsire tank the hit, haze, switch out. Boom now that boosted Pokemon is no longer a threat to the rest of your team that doesn't ignore stat boosts. Seems like an excellent asset to stall teams.

Not only is it viable in my opinion for stall teams it also works well for baton pass chains.

"Oh but Dope Boi stored power still kills quagsire!!1!1!" Don't let the team boost enough to be able to kill with just a huge base power move.

And can you guys stop even mentioning haze murkrow and imprison musharna? Obviously these are stupid and not legitimate counters. Running a little cup poke in ou is dumb obviously, anyone legitimately claiming that this is an option is foolish and should be ignored. Instead why don't you guys look at the list of many viable counters that myself and other pro baton pass members have listed. We have lost to these things, they counter baton pass chain full stop if played well. Instead this thread seems to pick the least viable counter and dissect it and claim "see bp broken." Try using the legitimate counters listed and you will see that it's possible.

Some of you claim that certain teams auto lose to baton pass. But these counters listed work for many different team types. When tested it will be obvious that baton pass can be countered by many different teams. It simply requires early pressure and smart play as any well made team should require to beat.

 

[accelgors]

i don't think BP is nearly broken enough to be banned. i feel like you have to screw up at least a couple of times to have a BP team easily sweep you, and while everyone does screw up and there's nothing wrong with that, i don't think things should be banned if it's mostly the individual player's fault that they lost to them.
like, to completely sweep without any problems at all you usually need to boost all five boost-able stats more than once, and you have to give the BP team a pretty good amount of turns without messing up the chain to let them boost all of them enough to sweep you. i get that magic bounce and speed boost make baton pass chains harder to break but it's not impossible by any means, and i think something's not broken unless you have to use only a certain one/a few strategies to beat it, and there's a lot of strategies that can beat BP teams most of the time.
as for stall teams...i think the solution there is to just not use pure stall teams...that strategy is easy to beat for pretty much every good strategy out there, not just BP, so it's not really BP's fault. i mean, you can just pack one pokemon that isn't just for stalling on the team and that fixes that problem pretty quickly. why would you even use a pure stall team and expect to win? of course that doesn't work. you can't just approach a tier full of human players that are going to put actual thought into their teams (and yes, most people do at least think a little about their teams even if they aren't experienced in the metagame) with a strategy filled with that many holes and expect to win.

 

[rachet67]

The stall player let Quagsire get spored immediately. Should have let something else get spored to keep Quagsire pressure on... That was a terrible replay.



Sylveon can be poisoned and gets hit hard by EQ. After a Toxic Quagsire can just recover spam until it switches out, at which point it spams haze.

After Quagsire uses haze, Sylveon will still have its sub, and can just force Quagsire out and start the chain again.

 

[Halcyon.]

This OU viable is becoming a Joke. They are OU because we deem them OU. If Baton Pass is such a problem, then new pokemon able to beat Baton Pass should probably become OU, right? 'OU viable' depends on usage statistics, not your favorite pokemon right now...

No, "OU" and "OU viable" are two completely different things lol. Just because people on the ladder decide they want to use Trevenant a bunch doesn't make it OU viable. Things can hit that 3.41% cutoff and still be bad. Goodra is still OU and is complete garbage. Donphan was OU for months before finally dropping and was certainly not OU viable. If Baton Pass is forcing stall to run checks to it (not counters, checks) that are dead weight against the rest of the tier, than it should be clear to you that something is wrong. Baton Pass is also waaaay too much of a gimmick for stall teams to be overly concerned with it, let alone dedicate an entire Pokemon just to counter it. Do you understand how important every member of a stall team is? Something tells me you do not.


EDIT @ below: Yeah the top guy on the OU ladder must suck.

 

[Hiphiphooray]

After Quagsire uses haze, Sylveon will still have its sub, and can just forcing Quagsire out and start the chain again.

Sylveon runs Calm Mind, Baton Pass, Hyper Voice and Stored Power most of the time. I still think any decent player can beat Baton Pass with Haze Quagsire. I think suspect tests will prove that. But lets be honest here, thats really going to be a 'stall' game, haha.

 

[trc]

This OU viable is becoming a Joke. They are OU because we deem them OU. If Baton Pass is such a problem, then new pokemon able to beat Baton Pass should probably become OU, right? 'OU viable' depends on usage statistics, not your favorite pokemon right now...

OU viablility isn't based on usage ?_?
The OU tier is based on usage
They're deinitely not the same thing.Kabutops isn't OU but is one of the most threatening Pokemon in OU, whereas Goodra is OU and isn't exactly good.

 

[Srn]

But isn't stall already the most viable type of team to have a Hazer or Mold Breaker Roar? Stall also should be able to use Curse and Pranksters like Whimscott viably. Red Card also works great on entry hazard dependent stall teams. Stall, of all styles, should find it very easy to adapt to an influx of Baton Pass teams!

Umm, I think you have this all wrong.

The best way to break through a baton pass without resorting to obscure and otherwise impractical pokemon (e.g. 80% of the things in your signature) is through offensive pressure in the first few turns of the game. This is undisputable.
So how the hell is stall supposed to apply this type of offensive pressure anyway?

Users of Curse that are ghost types (trevenant) are basically not viable for OU, they suck. If you seriously use Curse in OU STALL, and expect it to not hold you back at all, you really have the wrong idea of stall here.
Any Hazer either doesn't have the room to run it or doesn't fit in stall or is redundant and doesn't even do its job anyway (QUAGSIRE)
Any mold breaker roar (mega gyarados basically) is sorta dumb to run. You could use that moveslot much better for stall.
Pranksters outside of Sableye suck, and Sableye gets owned by Sylveon anyway.
Red Card is a one time item, and leftovers is infinitely more useful to a stall team.

Deoxys-S is a very strong counter to Baton Pass with Knock Off, Psycho Boost and Taunt. This can perform well on Stall.
Red Card Foretress already exists on some Stall teams.
Whimscott can be abused on Stall teams.
Crobat can be used to Quickly Taunt / Defog / Haze. It's also got good defensive typing for stall teams.
Quagsire can run haze effectively.
Any spin blocker can bring Curse! Trevenant is a big one here. Chandelure is another great spin blocker who can learn haze or 2hko the entire BP team with Infiltrator.
Sableye is great on Stall teams, as well as several other prankster users.
Tentacruel is used tons on stall teams and can learn haze.

I'm not sure how Haze on Quagsire doesn't auto win. Sure if you let Sylveon set up then it will kill you. But if you just spam Haze from the start you pretty much win...

Deo-s on stall? Are you serious? Do you even know what stall is supposed to do??
Red Card Forre, or Forre itself for that matter, is just set-up fodder for many of the tiers biggest threats. Even if you wanted to run Forre, why would you run it over leftovers? AND EVEN IF you ran red card, Baton pass is going up against stall. It will have SEVERAL chances to get the chain going again, and red card is a one time item. Don't even start with recycle lol.
Crobat is a UU pokemon, and its defensive typing lets it check what again? It's not even that bulky, and a billion other pokemon could perform any role it did better than crobat does.
Quagsire does not run haze effectively, and cannot stop baton pass whatsoever.
Trevenant sucks
Sableye doesn't even do anything on baton pass except lost to sylveon.
Tentacruel dies to stored power even quicker than other haze users; if we rejected quagsire because it dies to stored power too soon what makes you think we'll like tentacruel better?

I'm not sure how Haze on Quagsire doesn't auto win. Sure if you let Sylveon set up then it will kill you. But if you just spam Haze from the start you pretty much win...

Haze has 48 pp. Baton pass has 64 pp. You're going up against 6 baton pass users. Do you see where I'm going with this?

This OU viable is becoming a Joke. They are OU because we deem them OU. If Baton Pass is such a problem, then new pokemon able to beat Baton Pass should probably become OU, right? 'OU viable' depends on usage statistics, not your favorite pokemon right now...

OU pokemon is determined by usage, but "OU viable" is totally different. Again, look at the classic examples of Kyu-b and Manaphy. Once upon a time, they were thrown into UU for the stupidest of reasons: Usage. These two pokemon perform better than 60% of the OU metagame did at that time itself! So how the hell did these behemoths end up in UU? Usage.
See why Usage is a crappy argument? The amount of usage a pokemon receives does not affect how good a pokemon truly is.

And going by your logic, why not just let Kyogre back into OU? The pokemon that can beat kyogre (AV ludicolo, gastro, Parasect) will just recieve more usage! They're hard counters to Kyogre, and we're just sitting back and letting the metagame develop into a kyogre fuckfest
According to you, these pokemon (which are pretty trash in OU atm) will become totally OU viable when Kyogre is let back into the tier, and these pokemon become better because they receive usage, and this isn't related to kyogre whatsoever.

Sylveon runs Calm Mind, Baton Pass, Hyper Voice and Stored Power most of the time. I still think any decent player can beat Baton Pass with Haze Quagsire. I think suspect tests will prove that. But lets be honest here, thats really going to be a 'stall' game, haha.

SHOW ME THE CARFAX REPLAYS

 

[Hiphiphooray]

No, "OU" and "OU viable" are two completely different things lol. Just because people on the ladder decide they want to use Trevenant a bunch doesn't make it OU viable. Things can hit that 3.41% cutoff and still be bad. Goodra is still OU and is complete garbage. Donphan was OU for months before finally dropping and was certainly not OU viable. If Baton Pass is forcing stall to run checks to it (not counters, checks) that are dead weight against the rest of the tier, than it should be clear to you that something is wrong. Baton Pass is also waaaay too much of a gimmick for stall teams to be overly concerned with it, let alone dedicate an entire Pokemon just to counter it. Do you understand how important every member of a stall team is? Something tells me you do not.

I guess we both just fundamentally disagree here. I know how stall works, and I see where you are coming from. But in my opinion what you are saying is that because Baton Pass is gimmicky and only shows up 10% of the time, we shouldn't have to adapt to beat it. I get that. But then it's just a really disappointing ban if we chose to do it. Because we are literally just saying we dislike losing 10% of the time to something so instead of trying to improve our team to win that last 10% of the time, we just ban it...

 

[Albacore]

Sylveon runs Calm Mind, Baton Pass, Hyper Voice and Stored Power most of the time. I still think any decent player can beat Baton Pass with Haze Quagsire. I think suspect tests will prove that. But lets be honest here, thats really going to be a 'stall' game, haha.

Sylveon gets that Sub from another member of the chain. And you seem to be implying that the current #1 on the ladder is not a decent player, as shown by this replay

 

[MCBarrett]

If you want examples of replays where full baton pass is being used effectively just go to replays.pokemonshowdown.com and search for Denissss. He's one of the biggest offenders of full BP on the PS ladder and there's plenty of replays of matches that he has had on there. If you can somehow get through a few of these shitshow matches and still not think BP as a play style deserves to be nerfed in someway than please explain yourself because I'll thoroughly enjoy telling you why you are a lunatic that doesn't have the slightest grasp on what a competitive metagame is n_n

 

[Agent Gibbs]

Why does everyone here assume that haze quagsire is automatically bad? Yes it ignores stat boosts and that is why I think it is perfect for haze. Switch in quagsire tank the hit, haze, switch out. Boom now that boosted Pokemon is no longer a threat to the rest of your team that doesn't ignore stat boosts. Seems like an excellent asset to stall teams.

Here's the problem I've found with Haze Quagsire (and yes, I have used it before). If Haze Quagsire is your main answer to a setup sweeper, one of three things is most likely to happen:

1)Quagsire beats the sweeper 1-on-1. In this case, you really didn't need Haze since Unaware will get the job done.

2)Quagsire loses 1-on-1 but is able to Haze away the opponent's boosts before going down. Then the opponent sweeps you cleanly because you just lost your main answer to their sweeper.

3)Quagsire loses 1-on-1 but is able to Haze away the opponent's boosts before going down. Then you go to something else on your team that can handle the sweeper. Then you have to ask yourself why on earth you didn't just go to that Pokemon to begin with instead of losing your Quagsire.

Good stall teams generally have answers to most setup sweepers without having to resort to Haze, and most of the time, Haze isn't going to do you that much good to begin with. Either Quagsire wins without it thanks to Unaware or it loses. If it loses, you're either going to get swept (if that sweeper could find room to set up before, it could probably do it again), or you just wasted your Quagsire when you have something else that could handle the sweeper.

"Oh but Dope Boi stored power still kills quagsire!!1!1!" Don't let the team boost enough to be able to kill with just a huge base power move.

I wish it were that simple, but it's not. Simply leading with Smeargle (if you haven't realized by now, leading with Smeargle is sort of a "Get Out of Jail" card for early game pressures), you can get those 6 boosts with just two Quiver Dances. Smeargle can also put Quagsire to sleep, and switching out for fear of sleep can risk giving your opponent a free Quiver Dance, so it's just one big guessing game. Sylveon also 2HKOs somewhere between 60%-70% of the time with Hyper Voice, depending on where she and Quagsire put their leftover 4 EVs, so Quagsire isn't completely safe even outside of Stored Power.

 

[Halcyon.]

I guess we both just fundamentally disagree here. I know how stall works, and I see where you are coming from. But in my opinion what you are saying is that because Baton Pass is gimmicky and only shows up 10% of the time, we shouldn't have to adapt to beat it. I get that. But then it's just a really disappointing ban if we chose to do it. Because we are literally just saying we dislike losing 10% of the time to something so instead of trying to improve our team to win that last 10% of the time, we just ban it...

No, see, this is the part you're not getting. You are not improving your team by packing a counter to BP, you are making it worse. You want to run Curse Trevenant instead of, say, Mega Venusaur or Ferrothorn on your stall team? Well you can be sure that you'll lose to a whole host of new threats such as Taunt Gyarados, Tail Glow Manaphy, Greninja, add on an unnecessary Aegislash weakness, and may overall hurt the synergy of your team. The point people are trying to make is that this opportunity cost is too great. Having to run a specific counter for something you only see once in a blue moon or else you lose 100% of the time is absurd.

 

[Tesung]

I have played bp often enough With TFLs haze quaggy team, and I would call myself a good player, which I can back up with like ladder peaks or being in spl I guess, and it can beat bp like half the time. It is too easy for them to keep momentum, and use a combo of powerful stored powers,hyper voice, and smeargle spore to win.

 

[Hiphiphooray]

No, see, this is the part you're not getting. You are not improving your team by packing a counter to BP, you are making it worse. You want to run Curse Trevenant instead of, say, Mega Venusaur or Ferrothorn on your stall team? Well you can be sure that you'll lose to a whole host of new threats such as Taunt Gyarados, Tail Glow Manaphy, Greninja, add on an unnecessary Aegislash weakness, and may overall hurt the synergy of your team. The point people are trying to make is that this opportunity cost is too great. Having to run a specific counter for something you only see once in a blue moon or else you lose 100% of the time is absurd.

And thats the name of the game my friend. You team build and team build over and over. There is no such team that has no counters. Baton Pass is good because its best counters are obscure pokemon that aren't common in the OU tier. I think once it becomes common enough, the entire OU tier will adapt to beat it. And it'll get beat so badly that it will go away for a long time.

I think the reason people are having such a hard time dealing with it right now is because it isn't common enough that they are willing to change their team, but its annoying enough to make you lose 10% of your games. Should we let the meta continue, I think Baton Pass usage will increase, Baton Pass counters will increase, and then Baton Pass teams will fall. Like a true meta - adapting and changing with the players and playstyles.

 

[sidakarya]

And thats the name of the game my friend. You team build and team build over and over. There is no such team that has no counters. Baton Pass is good because its best counters are obscure pokemon that aren't common in the OU tier. I think once it becomes common enough, the entire OU tier will adapt to beat it. And it'll get beat so badly that it will go away for a long time.

This is the future you chose.

 

[rachet67]

And thats the name of the game my friend. You team build and team build over and over. There is no such team that has no counters. Baton Pass is good because its best counters are obscure pokemon that aren't common in the OU tier. I think once it becomes common enough, the entire OU tier will adapt to beat it. And it'll get beat so badly that it will go away for a long time.

Yes, and if we introduced Kyogre into OU and it became common enough, the entire OU tier would adapt to beat it. However, do we really want this? Having to run obscure checks that are subpar against any other standard team is a sign that something is broken.

 

[Jaiho]

A potential check that is viable in OU hasn't been mentioned is Swords Dance+Sacred Sword Terrakion.
Sacred Sword ignores the opponent's defense boosts, meaning it can use Vaporeon and Scolipede as setup bait and proceed to sweep the entire opposing team if you play your card rights.
Unlike Aegislash, Terrakion is fast and doesn't have to worry about murdering its defensive stat whenever it attacks.
A +2 Sacred Sword can do this kind of damage:
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Terrakion Sacred Sword vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Espeon: 187-220 (55.9 - 65.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Terrakion Sacred Sword vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Vaporeon: 374-441 (80.6 - 95%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

The best answer BP teams can carry is Sylveon, who is OHKO'd by a +2 Stone Edge even if it runs max physical bulk:
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sylveon: 398-468 (101 - 118.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Zapdos and Scolipede are also OHKO'd by Stone Edge even without boosts. That leaves Smeargle, who needs its sash broken first, but honestly Smeargle is the easiest BP member to deal with anyways.

In fact, I think this set:

Terrakion @ Life Orb
4 HP/252 Atk/252 Sp
Jolly nature
-Swords Dance
-Agility
-Sacred Sword
-Stone Edge

Can single-handedly run through the entire team, provided Sleep Clause has taken effect.
Last time I checked double dance Terrakion was very viable, so the question here is: would switching Close Combat for Sacred Sword for the sake of countering BP teams make Terrakion unviable in OU?

I'm sorry, but this is way too niche. For one, running double dance on Terrakion is a pretty bad idea this gen, since the offensive teams that are meant to be defeated by outspeeding are now running priority on staples like Talonflame and Azumarill. On top of that, Aegislash completely walls you now, which is never a good thing in this meta. Also, why would I give up one of the most spammable, abusable, low risk move in the game (Close Combat), for a move 30 bp lower, whose only upside is beating Baton Pass, since pretty much nothing else is boosting defense in this meta. Thats like saying that you should use moves like swift to counter evasion. Sets like these are 100% grasping for straws, and we need to focus this thread. Instead of pointless niche "counters" being posted, we should focus on what is the optimal way to nerf BP, since that is pretty much the consensus of the knowledgable people in the thread. I personally say to limit BP to 2 users, since most BP chains only really require a couple members each game, and 2 lets one still quickpass and have a 'mon able to escape pursuit, which are justifiable reasons to use BP.

 

[Hiphiphooray]

This is the future you chose.

More interesting than Stall V Stall, haha! The funny thing is that with 90% of the teams Baton Pass we will see a large majority of teams running more obscure pokemon that can effectively beat Baton Pass. So while there may be a lot of Baton Pass v Baton Pass, there won't be much consistent winning for any Baton Pass teams.

Yes, and if we introduced Kyogre into OU and it became common enough, the entire OU tier would adapt to beat it. However, do we really want this? Having to run obscure checks that are subpar against any other standard team is a sign that something is broken.

Why do people try to compare a competitive tactic to a Uber Pokemon? The only comparison is weather in Gen 5. I am open to hear those.