if the offending pokemon is venusaur why not just suspect that? keeps things as simple as possible. or are victreebel/shiftry w/e just gonna do the same thing (honest question, i have no idea)
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BW2 Suspect Proposal
- Thread starter Ojama
- Start date
Yes, I believe Venusaur is the core of the Sun problem. The only reason why Sun is still used is because Venusaur is broken. I don't think the other Chlorophyll abusers are broken at all. Victreebel and Sawsbuck are the other 2 viable Sun abusers but they are very flawed in comparison to Venusaur (Victreebel is slower than some scarfers and can't set up Volcarona sweeps as well as Venusaur, and Sawsbuck is blocked by some very common Pokemon / doesn't have a Sleep move. Both of them are also very frail in comparison to Venusaur, which hurts their ability to set up and check some very important threats Venusaur handles.) Simply banning Venusaur is, in my opinion, the best option. Every other Weather Speed ability user in the tier is very far from broken. Not to mention, removing Chlorophyll abusers means that Sun is absolutely worthless, while it might see some use with Victreebel...
I personally agree with the argument that old metagames shouldn't be touched if possible. My main concern is that banning or adding new stuff can really influence a metagame, and will always trigger a period of instability. The best example I have of that is the evolution of the XY OU metagame after the Aegislash / Mawile ban. The bans themselves really changed the metagame, but the metagame from right after the bans is pretty different from the pre-ORAS metagame, which has the same exact banlist. In the first few months it was extremely unstable with new stuff appearing every few weeks and some other stuff dropping in usage (more so than the usual.) I don't think that a "dead" metagame like BW OU is very well equipped to deal with such a situation. It doesn't have an active ladder, it's not played in a lot of tournaments bar a few official ones, and its elite player base is often inactive. For the new BW to come to maturity, you'd need to wait a lot more time than for the current OU, for example. This could mean years. I don't think that's a great idea.Django said:
Lavos
Banned deucer.
I strongly object to the premise of your post. Yeah, Venusaur's dumb as shit, but I would still use Sun if Venusaur was banned. Probably more than I do now because your average teambuilder would prep even less for it. You have to think of the secondary impacts of the ban, with Venu being removed from the meta it's going to prompt a lower priority incentive to pack Sun checks compared to checking other more likely threats. Victreebel in particular is a good enough replacement to let me win the cost/benefit tradeoff. If you're going to touch this metagame, go big or go home.
This is part of why I'm not huge on old gen bans, the meta grows in an awkward kind of way. Sure, Sun may be seemingly more effective when removing Venusaur because people may think of Sun as less of a threat but I seriously doubt that would be anything more than a short term look at things. People adapt. Now this adaptation may be slower because BW OU isn't the main metagame anymore but Victreebel, or any other Sun abuser, is just a worse Venusaur. As the metagame is right now, I don't see much reason to believe that a non-Venusaur Sun abuser would be broken.
Lavos
Banned deucer.
Yeah I think you misinterpreted my post. Of course Sun without Venusaur won't be as strong. But Sun itself when combined with the Chlorophyll mechanic is just as cancerous to the metagame regardless of whether Venu's banned or not. It's still going to be a playstyle which revolves almost entirely around matchup and abuses cheap tactics to achieve victory. Whether it's a little more shit or not doesn't matter in the slightest. It's a blight on the meta.
The question of "does Sun get better with a Venu ban" isn't even one we should be asking. On paper it's worse, realistically I'd imagine it will be equal or better for a time (especially considering how slow BW is to adapt since the ladder is dead) but that's all theory. The question that needs to be asked here is something along the lines of "is Drought+Chlorophyll broken NOW" and I think it's a pretty conclusive yes.
If you want to get into uncompetitiveness we can, I think Sun also qualifies there. But that's a can of worms I'd rather not open when it's so easy to prove what's already being asked.
Yeah, Venusaur does seem like a threat that a lot of people aren't happy about. Instead of holding formal suspect tests, why can't we do something like what we're doing in ORAS OU/UU now, so do like a No Venusaur metagame? If sun is still broken, we can add one or two more threats to the list at the most, and if it's still broken then, then we could kind of "prove by induction" that Sun+Chloro should be banned. Like, when we banned DrizzleSwim, it was painstakingly obvious that Kingdra in rain alone was not the problem, but pretty much EVERY Swift Swimmer that mattered (not counting shit like Magikarp). It was kind of reflected in some of the teams too - you could have Toed + 3 Swift Swimmers + splashable glues like Ferro and still wreck shit, so it was obvious that Kingdra itself was not the problem. You can't do Ninetales + 3 Chloro spammers + splashable glues because the team just can't function that way as it needs specific support (spin/Duggy/etc), so it's not as easy to tell.
IF something is to be done, and imo that should still be a big if (meddling in past gens inevitably opens up a can of worms), regarding Sun in BW, banning Venusaur would be bad policy. The problem with Venusaur is not based on things in Venusaur's control, but is in fact ENTIRELY from the combination of Venusaur's Chlorophyll and Ninetales' Drought. For that reason, it's definitely more analagous to the majority of Rain sweepers than to Excadrill, imo.
Why? In a meta where you complex ban all weather speed boosting, which mons will still actually see use? Excadrill would get used as a Spinner and a huge dissuader to opponent's bringing Sand. Kingdra is the only Swift Swimmer that sees use, as it is now, and it is manageable. And then you have Overgrow Venusaur, who can what? Not gonna be a threat with manual Sunny Day either because that has no movepool space to actually threaten anything. So it has SubSeed and Sleep Powder? Certainly a decent set, but I can't even say for sure if it would stay in OU. With those same tricks it was UU in DPP (though OU viable for sure). Moreover, Chlorosaur wouldn't remain a threat vs opposing Sun because no one is running Sun anyway in a meta with no weather speed boosting, except maybe for those weird sun stall builds people like mien use.
It just doesn't make sense to ban Venusaur as a whole, when, with the weather factor removed, it's worse than both Kingdra and Excadrill.
IF something is to be done, the best paths, in order, are
1) ChloroDrought
2) ChloroDrought and StreamRush (less preferred because I think Sandslash and Stoutland are good influences and I'm not sure Sand Rush Exca would be, given what it does to opposing Sand)
3) Chlorophyll on its own (simple ban, only mon that ends up banned as a result is Cherubi as all others have a second choice, but it ruins manual sun in lower tiers)
Why? In a meta where you complex ban all weather speed boosting, which mons will still actually see use? Excadrill would get used as a Spinner and a huge dissuader to opponent's bringing Sand. Kingdra is the only Swift Swimmer that sees use, as it is now, and it is manageable. And then you have Overgrow Venusaur, who can what? Not gonna be a threat with manual Sunny Day either because that has no movepool space to actually threaten anything. So it has SubSeed and Sleep Powder? Certainly a decent set, but I can't even say for sure if it would stay in OU. With those same tricks it was UU in DPP (though OU viable for sure). Moreover, Chlorosaur wouldn't remain a threat vs opposing Sun because no one is running Sun anyway in a meta with no weather speed boosting, except maybe for those weird sun stall builds people like mien use.
It just doesn't make sense to ban Venusaur as a whole, when, with the weather factor removed, it's worse than both Kingdra and Excadrill.
IF something is to be done, the best paths, in order, are
1) ChloroDrought
2) ChloroDrought and StreamRush (less preferred because I think Sandslash and Stoutland are good influences and I'm not sure Sand Rush Exca would be, given what it does to opposing Sand)
3) Chlorophyll on its own (simple ban, only mon that ends up banned as a result is Cherubi as all others have a second choice, but it ruins manual sun in lower tiers)
I am all for supporting this since it will make the metagame better, but I don't think solves the entire problem tbh. It won't make sun stable in the metagame (I think sun itself is the problem here), but it will certainly help even things out.
Bringing down Excadrill puts Volcarona over the edge farther than it already is. Its a much better spinner than the ones currently and will probably make the meta more enjoyable should Volcarona ever be removed from it. As long as Volc stays though, I am against this.
- The source of many problems that have been outlined but danced around multiple times.
- Owns balance on a pretty much "no matter what" basis. Requires spin support (at least, duggy helps too), but that still doesn't change the fact that it makes this metagame extremely match up based whenever it appears.
- Just plain auto wins against many match ups, requires no support ether.
- Guaranteed kill, stupid strong revenge killer / cleaner. Requires little to no support at all.
Bringing down Excadrill puts Volcarona over the edge farther than it already is. Its a much better spinner than the ones currently and will probably make the meta more enjoyable should Volcarona ever be removed from it. As long as Volc stays though, I am against this.
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This is terrible logic, if Venusaur is broken (or unhealthy or w/e) given the proper support and the other chlorophyll users are not, then Venusaur is the problem and should be banned. Who cares if it's worse outside of sun than Kingdra and Exca are in their respective weather, that doesn't have anything to do with its tiering. Banning Venusaur follows the same logic as Excadrill, one abuser of a weather ability (venu, Exca) is broken while others (shiftry, sandslash) are not so you ban the broken Pokemon and not the arbitrary combination of abilities. It's a little different with drizzle swim, as aside from Kingdra, I believe Ludi and Kabutops where problems, and maybe even more. So if Venusaur is a problem then it should be removed first. If other Chlorophyll abusers are still a problem then you consider drought + chlorophyll but the OP specifically addressed Venusaur as a problem. I'm no BW OU expert (then again neither are half the people posting in this thread), but this type of jump from x mon is broken to we should ban y combination of abilities seems like a questionable approach to tiering.
Edit @ below:
1) You can't know that (about either Venusaur or Excadrill) without actually participating in some sort of real suspect test.
2) You completely missed my main point which is, if Venusaur is the problem, then it should be banned, and that ChloroDrought should only be banned if other Chlorophyll sweepers are actually broken.
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I explained the difference. Exca should remain banned as a whole because Sand Rush Exca even without its own Sand support would make the use of opposing sand very shaky. The same cannot be said of Venusaur.
I'm really disapointed that you ignored the whole point that has actually been made about how unhealthy Sun is, to focus on the choice of words that Ojama made. By broken, I don't think that he meant "over-powered to the point you can't really prepare" for it, but rather "so strong that you have to run very specific answers, that overburden the building in general".
I feel really bad for all these words, and sentences that have been wasted here. Because, basically, by swaping "broken" for "uncompetitive/unhealthy", your whole post is now obsolete and doesn't make any sense anymore. Because yea, obviously Sun isn't broken in terms of win ratio, everybody knows that by now.
You say people don't use it in tournaments ? So wrong. Plus, that's what you're secretly hoping until you face one and realise during the preview that there is nothing you can do (or the opposite). (read my first post maybe?)
Now, it seems that you're driven by a barely hidden compulsion to suspect Reuniclus, which honnestly I respect and find valid. However, that doesn't mean that you have to attempt so hard to discredit the case at hand by conveniently focus on a clumsy choice of words while ignoring all the others posts.
Plus, it doesn't make your post look clever to join stats and feint that they speak by themselves. It's quite the opposite actually, especially if you really believe that they are relevant. You only pointed out that Sun has the winning % of a coinflip, which is rather logical if you ask me.
Lavos
Banned deucer.
I would like to point one thing out that Reymedy didn't address (although for everything that he did, his logic is stellar and you should give his post a read if you haven't already). Conflict cites usage statistics in SPL as one of the main reasons for why Sun isn't apparently unhealthy/broken. With extremely low usage of around 3% he asserts that Sun can't be broken, because then more people would use it, right? Except this directly ignores the underlying nature of bringing any Sun team, which is that it's reliant almost entirely upon matchup. Win or lose can basically be determined by a coin flip and thus players at especially high calibers such as SPL would obviously be reluctant to use it. There are a number of reasons for this. First is that players who could choose to use Sun opt for a more consistent playstyle because they believe that they can outplay their opponents. Since most high-level players are very confident in their abilities, this should come as no surprise. Additionally, players that are perhaps not as well regarded in BW as their opponents would seek to use a strategy not named Sun to prove themselves to their team and the community, elevating them to the level of those who were previously considered "better" because they have just outplayed them. In SPL and other major tournaments, the only type of player I could see consistently using Sun is a player who regards himself as worse than his opponents but has no qualms about displaying skill in his victories as long as he achieves said victories (see: WCOP VII when I out-matchup'd BKC in the finals with my Sun team despite him playing far better).
So yeah, don't cite usage stats as any sort of valuable source, especially considering the nature of our discussion.
edit: Apparently Conflict also called Sun a "potent niche strategy" and said those who oppose it are simply too lazy to prepare for it. Let me remind everyone which metagame we're talking about here. In BW OU there are so many incredibly powerful threats that you cannot simply prepare for all of them, and thus sacrifices in teambuilding have to be made, so I don't really see the validity of his argument. Sometimes your team has room to check Sun and sometimes it doesn't. Most of the time, even if you are moderately prepped for Sun, you get steamrolled by a good Sun player because it's overpowered. Take it from someone with experience on both sides of that.
So yeah, don't cite usage stats as any sort of valuable source, especially considering the nature of our discussion.
edit: Apparently Conflict also called Sun a "potent niche strategy" and said those who oppose it are simply too lazy to prepare for it. Let me remind everyone which metagame we're talking about here. In BW OU there are so many incredibly powerful threats that you cannot simply prepare for all of them, and thus sacrifices in teambuilding have to be made, so I don't really see the validity of his argument. Sometimes your team has room to check Sun and sometimes it doesn't. Most of the time, even if you are moderately prepped for Sun, you get steamrolled by a good Sun player because it's overpowered. Take it from someone with experience on both sides of that.
Im baffled at the audacity with which you seem to just declare all the arguements i made useless. And instead of good counterpoints all you are doing is claiming im doing a play-of-words and dont adress the issue at hand.
You claim that sun is unhealthy/uncompetitive because apparently one has to run very specific answers to this playstyle. I have got to admit that i agree with you that one needs to run very specific answers to this threat but this goes for everything in Pokemon. If you dont have anything to check Dragon Dance Dragonite youre going to get swept, if you dont have an switch-in for Keldeo youre gonna have a hard time. Such is life (pokemon). Its a fact that every team needs to have solid answers to the top threats of the metagame. But with what reasoning can you proclaim that having to run counters to sun is unhealthy and having to run counters to strategyx/monY (for example: Rainstall, Dragmag, weatherless HO, bulky Sandoffense; KyuremB, Reuniclus, Dragonite, Volcarona, ....) is not unhealthy?
How do you define unhealthy? How uncompetitive? And why is your definition the right one and undoubtedly right? Why do you not accept other opinions laid bare with solid reasoning and evidence?
If you go back and reread Ojamas post to which i explicitly replied (marked due to the quotation) you will find no mention of unhealthy or uncompetitiveness (both 0 times mentioned whereas broken has 8!). So how can you fault me for working with what has been provided by the person that i am answering to? Did i have to take your definitions into account to reply to a post made before and independently from yours? Sorry i didnt know that that is how it works (yes i know this is your so called passive-agressive approach BKC).
Regardless of the fact that no one has even defined the terms unhealthy/uncompetitive in regards to Pokemon/BW why are all my points obsolete just by substituting a couple words? The fact that the strategy doesnt provide incredible gains and isnt used much in tournaments still stands until you provide prove that refutes that.
Just proclaiming that "No, youre wrong! Your statistics arent true! You cant SAY this!" doesnt automatically make your opionion more right than others. To refute a point you need evidence to prove the other side wrong and make good well-worded arguements. You did answer quite eloquently but you still didnt manage to adress and disprove the bulk of the reasoning i had made.
And apparently a winrate of 50% for certain mons now proves that the entire strategy is a coinflip when in a perfectly balanced metagame every mon should have 50% win percentage if 2 players of equal skill meet each other. Obviously a few metrics are hard to meet here but having a winrate close to 50% is good because it proves that the Pokemon is most likely balanced (because both sides of the coin have the same chance to be the one showing).
I have reread your previous post aswell and all i see is you alleging what you think is right while simultanously assuming that your opinion reflect that of everyone else (see:
Ive watched this particular game you linked and it wasnt as decisive as you claim it to be. In the end BKC wins narrowly 2-0 while having a decent matchup. He might aswell have won a close 2-0 game if he used a team based around Specskeldeo+Scarftar backed by for example Skarmory, Amoongus, Heatran. In the end he didnt make many mistakes, had a decent matchup and played well overall. Thats how Pokemon works - sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And most of the time the better player wins. In newer generations with their increased amount of available mons you have to cover while still being constrained to 6 slots this means that in a match of 2 equally skilled players the one might come out on top that has the better matchup/get luckier. If Masterclass team had a few different sets i believe he could have very well taken this set and won.
Anyways id appreciate if we could have a healthy discussion demonstrating our differing views and discussing each others points instead of trying to assert dominance over the other person or their opinion and just making blanket-claims (i.e. "Youre wrong cause i say so!"). Thanks!
You claim that sun is unhealthy/uncompetitive because apparently one has to run very specific answers to this playstyle. I have got to admit that i agree with you that one needs to run very specific answers to this threat but this goes for everything in Pokemon. If you dont have anything to check Dragon Dance Dragonite youre going to get swept, if you dont have an switch-in for Keldeo youre gonna have a hard time. Such is life (pokemon). Its a fact that every team needs to have solid answers to the top threats of the metagame. But with what reasoning can you proclaim that having to run counters to sun is unhealthy and having to run counters to strategyx/monY (for example: Rainstall, Dragmag, weatherless HO, bulky Sandoffense; KyuremB, Reuniclus, Dragonite, Volcarona, ....) is not unhealthy?
How do you define unhealthy? How uncompetitive? And why is your definition the right one and undoubtedly right? Why do you not accept other opinions laid bare with solid reasoning and evidence?
If you go back and reread Ojamas post to which i explicitly replied (marked due to the quotation) you will find no mention of unhealthy or uncompetitiveness (both 0 times mentioned whereas broken has 8!). So how can you fault me for working with what has been provided by the person that i am answering to? Did i have to take your definitions into account to reply to a post made before and independently from yours? Sorry i didnt know that that is how it works (yes i know this is your so called passive-agressive approach BKC).
Regardless of the fact that no one has even defined the terms unhealthy/uncompetitive in regards to Pokemon/BW why are all my points obsolete just by substituting a couple words? The fact that the strategy doesnt provide incredible gains and isnt used much in tournaments still stands until you provide prove that refutes that.
Just proclaiming that "No, youre wrong! Your statistics arent true! You cant SAY this!" doesnt automatically make your opionion more right than others. To refute a point you need evidence to prove the other side wrong and make good well-worded arguements. You did answer quite eloquently but you still didnt manage to adress and disprove the bulk of the reasoning i had made.
If sun isnt broken in terms of win ratio then what other metric do you use to establish the fact that sun needs to be changed? How can i access these facts and why cant i see them clearly? Could you enlighten me? Maybe i am missing something? (serious!)
All i have done is argue for my point of view and then i tried to back it by something tangible. To accentuate my points and give them more severity i included those statistics. Thats a standard discussion technique that has been proven over thousands of years (see: Sokrates).
This is the one point of your post that really aggrevates me. That is because you dismiss all the arguements made and statistics provided by me with the single assertion that me believing in them is already wrong. Reasoning provided why you think so? 0.
And apparently a winrate of 50% for certain mons now proves that the entire strategy is a coinflip when in a perfectly balanced metagame every mon should have 50% win percentage if 2 players of equal skill meet each other. Obviously a few metrics are hard to meet here but having a winrate close to 50% is good because it proves that the Pokemon is most likely balanced (because both sides of the coin have the same chance to be the one showing).
I have reread your previous post aswell and all i see is you alleging what you think is right while simultanously assuming that your opinion reflect that of everyone else (see:
). Your assertions are based upon your own opinion and your opinion only backed by one single replay as evidence.
Ive watched this particular game you linked and it wasnt as decisive as you claim it to be. In the end BKC wins narrowly 2-0 while having a decent matchup. He might aswell have won a close 2-0 game if he used a team based around Specskeldeo+Scarftar backed by for example Skarmory, Amoongus, Heatran. In the end he didnt make many mistakes, had a decent matchup and played well overall. Thats how Pokemon works - sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And most of the time the better player wins. In newer generations with their increased amount of available mons you have to cover while still being constrained to 6 slots this means that in a match of 2 equally skilled players the one might come out on top that has the better matchup/get luckier. If Masterclass team had a few different sets i believe he could have very well taken this set and won.
Anyways id appreciate if we could have a healthy discussion demonstrating our differing views and discussing each others points instead of trying to assert dominance over the other person or their opinion and just making blanket-claims (i.e. "Youre wrong cause i say so!"). Thanks!
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Your post is long so I'm gonna try to make bullet points real quick :
- You took a word, but didn't try to understand what Ojama meant by using it, so I went ahead and explained it with more details. Simple as that. I don't blame you for that though, I'm just trying to make you understand. I hope you didn't get offended.
- I didn't go through the explanation of why I think it's unhealthy because I already did in a previous post, and I think that Ojama, BKC, Lavos etc did it aswell, maybe better than I could. I know the Internet (among other places) is a lot about repeating stuff till it gets heard, but I know that you're smart enough to understand the points being made the first time you read them.
- No one ever used win ratio to determine if a Pokemon is broken. Come on, don't act like you don't know better. We could probably make books out of all the times this argument has been brought up during one of these 300 pages long suspect threads.
- Bringing Socrate is not very impactful, especially when you're talking about statistics. Statistics are like, the most common way ever to twist the reality at one's will. Maybe you don't get how ironical you sound when you bring them up (and wave them around like there is some gospel truth in it), to anyone who used such tools before in the case of a study. Unless you're as diligent as Durkheim you're probably not doing much better than what we see all day in the medias [parenthesis closed].
- I didn't not say that it was a coinflip to play sun, again, you're simply taking things out of their context. Either because I'm not really that good at explaining stuff (I give you that), or because you're on purpose trying desperatly to fight for a lost cause. I was simply making a joke. Basically, I was saying that your post is only about pointing out that Sun has a 50% win ratio, which happens to be the same % of a coin landing on one of its sides. Now if you want to extrapolate on this, feel free to, but it never was my intention.
"In the end BKC wins narrowly 2-0"
This, is something that bugs me. The fact that you, a pretty seasoned player, says something like that... makes me doubt of your seriousness.
Like, I don't know where to start. Ive seen games that ended up in a 1-0 that NEVER have been close one second. Would you call a game that was decided from the preview 100% close simply because there was only one Pokémon left ? No, you'd never make such a mistake.
I've seen nail-biting games that ended up in a 6-0.
And you've seen games like that too, I assume way more than me. For instance, take a game where it ends up in a 6-0, with all 6 Pokémons at 1% and SR up.. will you say "damn, what a one-sided game".
If, say, Style (for the sake of taking an example everybody knows) threw away 5 of her Pokémons vs CBB and ended up still sweeping his whole team dry with Manaphy HP Fire.. would you comment "wow, so close" ?
I feel really dumb explaining this, because I'm hella sure we all know this, and that you just acted a fool for the sake of trying to make a glass-argument.
Now, I feel like I've took too much place on this thread, I hope I havent been repetitive, and I hope that the stuff I said is now clearer.
- You took a word, but didn't try to understand what Ojama meant by using it, so I went ahead and explained it with more details. Simple as that. I don't blame you for that though, I'm just trying to make you understand. I hope you didn't get offended.
- I didn't go through the explanation of why I think it's unhealthy because I already did in a previous post, and I think that Ojama, BKC, Lavos etc did it aswell, maybe better than I could. I know the Internet (among other places) is a lot about repeating stuff till it gets heard, but I know that you're smart enough to understand the points being made the first time you read them.
- No one ever used win ratio to determine if a Pokemon is broken. Come on, don't act like you don't know better. We could probably make books out of all the times this argument has been brought up during one of these 300 pages long suspect threads.
- Bringing Socrate is not very impactful, especially when you're talking about statistics. Statistics are like, the most common way ever to twist the reality at one's will. Maybe you don't get how ironical you sound when you bring them up (and wave them around like there is some gospel truth in it), to anyone who used such tools before in the case of a study. Unless you're as diligent as Durkheim you're probably not doing much better than what we see all day in the medias [parenthesis closed].
- I didn't not say that it was a coinflip to play sun, again, you're simply taking things out of their context. Either because I'm not really that good at explaining stuff (I give you that), or because you're on purpose trying desperatly to fight for a lost cause. I was simply making a joke. Basically, I was saying that your post is only about pointing out that Sun has a 50% win ratio, which happens to be the same % of a coin landing on one of its sides. Now if you want to extrapolate on this, feel free to, but it never was my intention.
"In the end BKC wins narrowly 2-0"
This, is something that bugs me. The fact that you, a pretty seasoned player, says something like that... makes me doubt of your seriousness.
Like, I don't know where to start. Ive seen games that ended up in a 1-0 that NEVER have been close one second. Would you call a game that was decided from the preview 100% close simply because there was only one Pokémon left ? No, you'd never make such a mistake.
I've seen nail-biting games that ended up in a 6-0.
And you've seen games like that too, I assume way more than me. For instance, take a game where it ends up in a 6-0, with all 6 Pokémons at 1% and SR up.. will you say "damn, what a one-sided game".
If, say, Style (for the sake of taking an example everybody knows) threw away 5 of her Pokémons vs CBB and ended up still sweeping his whole team dry with Manaphy HP Fire.. would you comment "wow, so close" ?
I feel really dumb explaining this, because I'm hella sure we all know this, and that you just acted a fool for the sake of trying to make a glass-argument.
Now, I feel like I've took too much place on this thread, I hope I havent been repetitive, and I hope that the stuff I said is now clearer.
Because its argued that sun teams put you in a lose/lose situation. You either make a team that isn't weak to sunlight and then suffer large weaknesses against common metagame threats, or you make a team that can handle stuff like Magic Guard users etc etc...and then struggle with sun teams. The argument here is that sun teams restrict teambuilding to such an extent that that is not seen in some of the examples you mentioned. Running counters for a specific strategy or pokemon isn't broken on its own, but when your teambuilding is hamstrung by having to run specific counters that open you up to more threats, the argument can be made that an unhealthy influence exists somewhere and should be fixed.
Even if your team auto loses to sun which is rarely the case its on 3% of teams... Are we really going to try and make the metagame even LESS diverse. Also Custap Skarm Offense is far more "mindless" than Sun. I still think the whole idea to test chloro + drought is stupid. I see the Snuch team 10x more often than Sun... People are spamming that because Weatherless is good, you don't need a weather..
Just wanna say this isn't really the case. Banning something =/= less diversity. Obviously it works on a case by case basis, but if something is restricting teambuilding as it only has a few niche checks, then banning it could end up increasing diversity, by freeing up those spots for moves or Pokemon on your team you can run new things which might have been decent before but not good enough to force their way into a team. New threats emerge and diversity could increase! Then again, it might make the things that are already powerful (Reuiniclus etc...) even stronger. But, with fewer big threats to prepare for, it becomes easier to check those and then be creative with the rest of your teambuilding.
Centralising a tier around a small number of big threats isn't necessarily a bad thing, in fact I would say it makes the tier more fun! GSC and ADV are two good examples of this imo. Might be a controversial opinion but thats the way I see it n_n
Does anybody else think that it could be Dugtrio (and I guess Gothitelle), to be the main exacerbating factors of Sun (or team match up in general)? It eliminates/cripples counters to Sun, Venusaur, and Volcarona at virtually no cost (outside of a teamslot), setting an easy win condition for Sun abusers. It's not even just Sun - a team with win conditions that benefit from Dugtrio/Gothitelle sniping down key checks and counters have been utilized often to essentially determine the fate of the game at team preview (unless choke). I remember my former spl mate CTC handily losing to a "cteam" with Gothitelle that pretty much rendered CTC's Hippowdon useless/set up bait for one of the opponent's physical sweepers. It was so easy... and absolutely no hope for a comeback. Surprisingly, this problem didn't seem to carry over to XY from the handful of matches I've seen, but I think it's one of the main plague in BW2 that narrows the gap between two players with significant difference in skill levels.
Free double boost in Speed is viewed as unfair by a number of respected Smogon players, but I wonder if Venusaur + Sun would be as mindless as its current state if there was no Dugtrio/Gothitelle to help remove key threats to the team. I'd reckon such a sun team would actually be well built, like conventional teams, and well-played in order to claim victory in an important game. Venusaur's 4 MSS would certainly be a lot more notable w/o Dugtrio, and SR may have to be cleared/prevented for a longer duration of time... sun isn't exactly well known for a game of attrition.
Even if we remove weather-dependent speed boosting abilities, I believe the dependence of team match up will persist in BW2 as long as these efficient trappers are still available for cheap wins. Losing Chlorophyll would do little to stop the force that is Volcarona + Dug on a sun team, for instance.
EDIT: shrang, I don't want my post to be about a blanket statement on trapping in general, but more about Dugtrio and Gothitelle. I don't think trapping is inherently bad for the game, but I think those two pull it off too easily on too many meta targets and therefore heavily restrict teambuilding.
EDIT 2: Just to be clear, it is NOT my intention to test/ban these trappers so we can unban Genesect/Tornadus-T, since they are frankly too good in their own right. I thought this goes without saying, but some may think otherwise and detract from my main point. This is my take on the issues present in our currently existing metagame (namely sun and excessive team match up).
Free double boost in Speed is viewed as unfair by a number of respected Smogon players, but I wonder if Venusaur + Sun would be as mindless as its current state if there was no Dugtrio/Gothitelle to help remove key threats to the team. I'd reckon such a sun team would actually be well built, like conventional teams, and well-played in order to claim victory in an important game. Venusaur's 4 MSS would certainly be a lot more notable w/o Dugtrio, and SR may have to be cleared/prevented for a longer duration of time... sun isn't exactly well known for a game of attrition.
Even if we remove weather-dependent speed boosting abilities, I believe the dependence of team match up will persist in BW2 as long as these efficient trappers are still available for cheap wins. Losing Chlorophyll would do little to stop the force that is Volcarona + Dug on a sun team, for instance.
EDIT: shrang, I don't want my post to be about a blanket statement on trapping in general, but more about Dugtrio and Gothitelle. I don't think trapping is inherently bad for the game, but I think those two pull it off too easily on too many meta targets and therefore heavily restrict teambuilding.
EDIT 2: Just to be clear, it is NOT my intention to test/ban these trappers so we can unban Genesect/Tornadus-T, since they are frankly too good in their own right. I thought this goes without saying, but some may think otherwise and detract from my main point. This is my take on the issues present in our currently existing metagame (namely sun and excessive team match up).
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Just adding to that, a number of other suspects in BW2 were also exacerbated by trapping. Genesect and Tornadus-T also had their key counters trapped by Dugtrio, while something like Lando-I's counters were way too easily Pursuit trapped by Tyranitar. These Pokes were probably broken af without trapping (except for probably Lando-I since Latias creamed it), but trapping abilities + Pursuit did greatly exacerbate the situation to the point where there's almost a running trend.
Lavos Spawn I agree that Sun is "uncompetitive", which I think may be easier to argue than broken, but that's where being an old gen comes into play. I do not believe that Sun is so cancerous that it warrants meddling with an old gen, something I think should only be done when something is just so ridiculous that the metagame becomes unplayable because of it.
As for trapping, it's dumb as fuck honestly. I'd say it was one of the worst mechanics in the game and that seems to have peaked in BW. It's not worth doing anything with Pursuit or Arena Trap, they aren't "broken" just arguably uncompetitive, but Shadow Tag has been stupid as shit in just about every metagame. If only DW Chand came along, I'd love ST Clause.
As for trapping, it's dumb as fuck honestly. I'd say it was one of the worst mechanics in the game and that seems to have peaked in BW. It's not worth doing anything with Pursuit or Arena Trap, they aren't "broken" just arguably uncompetitive, but Shadow Tag has been stupid as shit in just about every metagame. If only DW Chand came along, I'd love ST Clause.
Trappers are interesting in that their purpose in competitive play is to amplify what's absurdly strong, but they're usually not self-sufficient (except Gengar in gen 6 but we banned that already). Because of that it can be difficult to pin the blame on either the strong Pokemon or the trapper itself. I do feel that we should take a look at trapping because its counterplay is nonexistent and that causes game health issues, whereas you can at least do -something- to stop the other strong threats.
Lavos
Banned deucer.
Okay TFC your post makes a lot more sense now. More of an ideological stance than anything, which I can empathize with.
Jibaku specifically through what lens do you suggest we look at trapping? For the exact reason you mentioned, I feel that it's impossible (at least in BW) to effectively examine trapping because it's not anything broken in itself, but more a method to enable threats that would be otherwise diminished. For OU the only pool you get to choose from is Dugtrio/Magnezone/Gothitelle, and individually those aren't even close to threats. You can of course make the case that Dugtrio's broken because, for instance, it's too good at enabling Volcarona. Okay, but is that Dugtrio's fault or Volcarona's? Unless you're Leftiez, the answer is simultaneously "neither" and "both". It's frankly an issue that Smogon policymaking sets no valuable precedent for, since the only case in which trappers have been banned previously is when they were indisputably individually broken.
Jibaku specifically through what lens do you suggest we look at trapping? For the exact reason you mentioned, I feel that it's impossible (at least in BW) to effectively examine trapping because it's not anything broken in itself, but more a method to enable threats that would be otherwise diminished. For OU the only pool you get to choose from is Dugtrio/Magnezone/Gothitelle, and individually those aren't even close to threats. You can of course make the case that Dugtrio's broken because, for instance, it's too good at enabling Volcarona. Okay, but is that Dugtrio's fault or Volcarona's? Unless you're Leftiez, the answer is simultaneously "neither" and "both". It's frankly an issue that Smogon policymaking sets no valuable precedent for, since the only case in which trappers have been banned previously is when they were indisputably individually broken.
That's a counter, not a counterplay. A counter is something you can have by preparing beforehand, but counterplay is more about direct mon to mon interactions. It's the ability to avoid or negate portions of the enemy's damage. Trappers, by definition, violate counterplay in a general sense because it consistently forces the enemy into a situation where the trapper has complete control.
Anyways enough buzzwords. I want to look at trappers in general because there's a similar case that happened in Ubers a while ago with Shadow Tag. Although Gothitelle is now irrelevant as of ORAS' release, it could have been legitimately argued as broken in Ubers in XY as it can really support the big threats and make them unbearable to deal with. Yet at the same time, it wasn't considered op in OU. (Not that I support the Tag ban but that's a different story).
Trappers aren't overpowered in itself, that's true. However, their sole purpose is to break a strong Pokemon or strategy, and in a way that's not interactive for the opposing player. Is something like that a healthy purpose for the metagame when the role becomes relevant?
Anyways enough buzzwords. I want to look at trappers in general because there's a similar case that happened in Ubers a while ago with Shadow Tag. Although Gothitelle is now irrelevant as of ORAS' release, it could have been legitimately argued as broken in Ubers in XY as it can really support the big threats and make them unbearable to deal with. Yet at the same time, it wasn't considered op in OU. (Not that I support the Tag ban but that's a different story).
Trappers aren't overpowered in itself, that's true. However, their sole purpose is to break a strong Pokemon or strategy, and in a way that's not interactive for the opposing player. Is something like that a healthy purpose for the metagame when the role becomes relevant?