Nah, I just read this:
and realized, shit, he's right.
I got carried away with arguing the point due to a personal interest in seeing this concept put into words cause I feel like it could help demystify competitive play. So I'm going to give it one last shot to put it into words, but stick it into hide tags.
Anyways, the other part I liked about that nightjackal post was how even "losing" that argument goes nowhere. Alright, so let's assume you've proven that attacking is just as fundamental as switching. You still haven't shown any diminished importance of the switching mechanic so my earlier arguments are untouched. How is taking away switching any less of a problem? All you have shown is that taking away attacking could be just as bad.
js, I don't read any of your similies and comparisons. They are just so far off from the subject at hand that discussing them doesn't really have much interest to me. I'm not even politically active so the points you are trying to make through them are lost on me. I mean, they might help explain your logic to other readers but just don't write them expecting me to consider them. Dunno if that saves you time or not.
Like I said before, I'd have dropped this topic if you didn't have such a overinflated sense of switching's importance. I originally only pointed out that a key difference between uncontrolled sleep and Shadow Tag is that it limits both attacking and makes switching useless since you'd just get whatever you switched in slept as well. In a sense, uncontrolled sleep limited both. That could have been the end of it if you weren't so keen on digging yourself so far into a hole that you completely exposed how grossly you exaggerated switching's importance. This by extension, means that you see Shadow Tag, a something that restricts that freedom way out of proportion to how much it actually limits you. Even IF you'd compromised in saying attacking is equal to switching (it isn't, attacking is far more fundamental), that would come back to that flawed "Shadow Grab" analogy of yours where you specifically stated that if you had an ability that limited attacking, you wouldn't find that uncompetitive. Here, let me just pull that up:
I've got a real simple, concrete hypothetical that should help illustrate the concept. Imagine GF made a new ability called Shadow Grab. The mechanics work just like Shadow Tag except that it stops Pokemon from attacking instead of switching unless, of course, that Pokemon was a Ghost-type or holding Shed Shell. For simplicity's sake, let's imagine they only gave it to the Pokemon that currently have the Shadow Tag ability.
Such an ability doesn't destroy choice. I'd still be able to chose the option of switching to my Ghost-type / Shed Shell Pokemon or of switching to a different Pokemon entirely because I predict my opponent will expect me to go to my Shadow Grab checks, etc. I may have to dedicate a slot in teambuilding to checking Shadow Grab mons but the ability still plays out like a normal, healthy game of Pokemon and there wouldn't even be remote concerns about it being uncompetitive.
So, if we just use some simple reasoning here, by your logic:
- Limiting attacking =/= uncompetitive
- If Nightjackal's post is correct, And limiting attacking = limiting switching in terms of importance, then: (Correction, Nightjackal did not say it)
Alright, so let's assume you've proven that attacking is just as fundamental as switching.
(From you)
- Limiting switching =/= uncompetitive
The only way limiting switching would be uncompetitive in your view would be if was more a more fundamental liberty if switching was more important than attacking, which I have shown you time and again on how damn wrong that is.
And by the way, "js, I don't read any of your similies and comparisons". Maybe if you read them it'll help you understand how you are so grossly wrong. You could at least show them the respect that I show your hypotheticals and examples (Shadow Grab, anyone?), instead of stuffing your hands in your ears (or in this case, your eyes) and ignoring key information. I understand that political references may be a bit out of your grasp, which is why I changed it to money and food. Now you have no excuse.
Attacking gains value as a mechanic in creating interesting choices *only* when the possibility of switching is present.
"Food gains value as a means in creating interesting choices (for survival) *only* when the possibility of money is present". That's basically the same logic you're advocating.
Keep in mind:
Otherwise we'll just be talking past eachother because, in the global perspective, attacking is a very fundamental mechanic. However, what's important about attacking is the fact it advances the gamestate towards a resolution. As far as creating interesting choices goes, it is entirely dependent on other aspects of the game, most notably switching. You could replace the attacking mechanics with some other way of advancing the gamestate and still have a fairly decent game that would play similarly to Pokemon. (well singles battling) It just wouldn't be good, imo, because the attacking mechanics integrate so well with the rest of the game.
Switching, on the other hand, isn't needed at all to advance the game state. You could have a functioning game if you removed it completely and didn't replace it. However, your game would be boring as balls and not have much interest. (Well, again, singles battling wouldn't. Pokemon as a whole would still work.) Switching is what differentiates Pokemon battling from the multitude of other turn-based games and is what makes it fun. Every choice made in competitive Pokemon revolves around this mechanic.
And tell me, how do you have an "interesting" or "fun" metagame when you cannot even finish a battle? You don't have a metagame at all. How do you have a fun metagame when the metagame doesn't exist?
You are focusing too much on the specific example. Check out sparksblade's post because he explains in different words what I've been trying to say. I dunno if that helps you or not.
Just as an aside, you also just said "Palkia" and not "SpD Palkia" which is a very important nuance to make. I use Dtail on spdef Palkia but would just about never use it on any other set. It's also not about theoretical metagame, I'm talking about the very same metagame tag is in right now. There's more than just Gothitelle and Gengar in it and I can't afford to be building my entire team around just beating them. Again, check out edgar's post because he explains this really well.
Alright fine, let's make that normal Palkia then. In fact, let's make it the most trappable Palkia set you can have, shall we? Let's pretend you're using Spacial Rend/Hydro/Thunder Wave/Rest. It is your choice here, to run Dragon Tail over any one of those attacks. You might drop Thunder Wave for Dragon Tail or Rest or even one of the attacks. You might tell me that you'd be making yourself to vulnerable whatever you just dropped, but the choice here is that if you don't, you get trapped for free by Gothitelle. Instead of complaining that S-tag is broken, it's about time we recognised that this is nothing more than a risk-benefit analysis. If you cannot afford to have your Palkia trapped by Gothitelle, you use Dragon Tail. If you don't mind taking the risk, then you can drop it,
but remember, in the end it was your choice to not run Dragon Tail. This might be focussing too much on this one example, sure, but the same concept can be expanded to everything else too. This again also highlights how much importance you put on switching. You're telling me you have no counterplay. You do have counterplay through the choices you make while teambuilding.
First off, let's not try to redefine uncompetitive. Besides the flaws with your definition that
jpw elaborated well on, I'm always going to prefer a definition provided before this debate by a third party group with no bias or participation in the current discussion over one created on the spot that conveniently supports the arguments of its creator. Disregarding it because it happens to come from the OU council is a very silly thing to do considering they were merely putting into writing how the word has been used, in regards to multiple metagames, throughout Smogon's history.
Well of course it "conveniently supports" my arguments. It's my definition. I'd be a hypocrite otherwise. Anyway, number of points:
-
I addressed what you see as "flaws" that jpw wrote a couple of posts below.
- Why shouldn't we question the definition that the OU council has come up with? Ignoring my personal problems with the actual content for now, it's there to first and foremost, serve the interests of the OU tier. It might be applicable to other tiers, but blindingly accepting it as gospel is also a very silly thing to do, especially when the principles judging both tiers are very different. I'm not saying my definition is necessarily right (although I think it serves our tier better than the one used for OU), but I'd prefer it if we had a proper discussion about how our own definition of uncompetitive should be before we even talk about banning things according to someone else's rules.
Why can't I do the same with my GeoXern?
Abusing the same luck-based element gives both players equal opportunity because they are trying to abuse the same chance for advancement. The eventual outcomes may differ but it's the same case for two people abusing Shadow Tag. Plus, we can talk about that massively increased team matchup and blind 50/50s, that you and I both dislike, if we are just going to try to find if the demon, Luck, is lurking in some corner.
- You can. You can also do the thing with Moody and OHKO and whatever else you'd like to throw at me. The difference here, between Shadow Tag, or wallbreaking or luring, is that the success of S-tag/wallbreaking/luring is mostly dependent on the player, while Swagger/Moody/other luck dependent clauses are not (they are dependent on the RNG). If you ran two games side by side and made exactly the same choices, S-tag would lead you to the same result (barring much less significant hax), while Swagger does not (hence giving unequal opportunities).
- Even though Shadow Tag prevents you switching, you still have intelligent choices left at your disposal to deal with S-tag (mostly from the teambuilder), or at least downplay its effects. Even if you don't or can't use the teambuilding options to help to downplay S-tag's effects (that's a choice right there), you can still make choices in the game to avoid S-tag the best you could through double switches and the like. I'm not saying these choices are in any way reliable or a fix, but the difference between this and hax-clauses is that even though S-tag might still end up trapping you in the end, this was done via the choices made by you and/or your opponent. The factors in which S-tag works are completely human decisions. If you really want to refer to the OU definition, then the only choice removed was the choice of switching after a Pokemon that for one reason or another, was refused the choice of escaping via various means (Shed Shell/Voltturn/phazing/Ghost-type/whatever). Every other choice is still available to you. On the other hand, the hax-based clauses truly take away choices from the player because whatever choice you make (eg to use Aegislash to check GeoXern) are made irrelevant because the result is decided by the RNG, not via either your and/or your opponent's choices.
It also doesn't really line up with many other existing bans. The first, obvious, one is Sleep Clause. I know you tried to pin that on luck but I find that completely strained. Most (if not all, idr) of your cited luck elements behind it didn't even exist when Sleep Clause was invented. They also lost to Taunt/Sub so they weren't really what the game reduced to.
The fact you even use luck to claim these bans match your definition is flawed.
I already addressed this. You might find it strained but unless you dispute what I said with evidence or reasoning, I'm going to stick by it.
