[DONE] Uncompetitive Strategies [Baton Pass]

[Oglemi]

Also, I'd rather get rid of every loopholes at once instead of delaying the inevitable, aka people digging for more ways to still get cheap wins after not Fully Effective bans.

That's a terrible attitude toward tiering and you know it. I would far rather ban only the problem than neuter a ton of non-threatening strategies as collateral on the premise that we "might" not have fully gotten rid of the problem.

koko's proposition of stopping BP from working once you hit +3 in any stat is looking more appealing to me at this point too, if we must do a blanket Clause of sorts for all gens. It completely neuters BP chains but doesn't neuter simple passing like AgiliPass Zapdos.

 

[McMeghan]

That's a terrible attitude toward tiering and you know it. I would far rather ban only the problem than neuter a ton of non-threatening strategies as collateral on the premise that we "might" not have fully gotten rid of the problem.

I would agree with you in most cases (I consider myself pretty reasonnable when it comes to banning), but Baton Pass is a totally different issue that actually warrants this kind of action IMO;

Let's look at the facts:

• This is the first time Baton Pass got adressed in the 6th Gen. Note that we -the OU Council- took a lot of time to tackle the Baton Pass issue due to its complexity and similar issues you're bringing up right now (do we wanna ban a move that sees legit usage? what kind of collateral damages do we want?). In XY/ORAS alone, Baton Pass has been an issue for more than a year now. Despite every kind of reasonnable limits we tried to impose on it, it kept coming back. It has dominated the ladder, affected many Official Tournaments and a ton of people got Suspect Reqs and qualified for OLT while only using Baton Pass teams, even the "weakest" iteration of it, aka the GeoPass team.
• This is the first time Baton Pass got adressed in the 5th Gen. 28th September, 2011. Baton Pass was dominating the ladder back in BW1 on PO already. Keep in mind that Smogon didn't attract near as much people, especially on the simulator, as it does right now. I don't wanna make it sound like a strong argument because it's only theory at this point, but if Baton Pass was dominating a ladder used by +10k users instead of 1~1.5k users, I think it would have caused the same problems in BW than it did in XY when it was all the rage.
• Add to that: the majority of the Tournament Player Base (I know some of them are too banhappy, but in this case, it includes even the reasonnable players (I'll use myself as an example, as cocky as it sounds)) always considered Baton Pass as a cheap way to get wins and something that should definitely be adressed if it became a bigger issue. It was problematic in BW tournaments: SmashPass affected many battles in OST or Smogon Tour (Play-Offs examples: Bloo in ST12 vs BIHI, DracoMalfoy vs Aqualouis in ST12, etc); it was problematic in DPP: GliscorPass affected many Smogon Tours (we've seen many people resorting to GliscorPass in the last weeks when they desesperately needed points); it was a problematic in ADV: BellyPass affected many Smogon Tours (CTC example in the OP).

It has always been a problem, and is now more than ever. At some point, I'm wondering why we should keep protecting a move that has been causing issues on our two biggest competitive venues: the ladder and our tournaments. XY's case is pretty disconcerting: Baton Pass has been a suspect-worthy issue for more than one year because we kept "beating around the bush" and everytime something has been done, the BP users/creators found a way to circumvent the issue.

For all the reasons listed above, I reached a point where I just wanna lock the door instead of just closing it.

 

[haunter]

Echoing McMeghan's sentiments here. We've been repeatedly nerfing Baton Pass and yet people have found more new ways to abuse it. I'd rather elaborate, once and for all, a final solution regarding this move/strategy now, than have to discuss about new potential complex bans in a few months.

 

[tennisace]

If you're looking to end this once and for all then just ban Baton Pass + boosting move. You're already proposing a large number of bans and clauses, some of which will nerf non-broken strategies anyway. At this point its a hell of a lot easier to explain a straight up Baton Pass ban than to list every single scenario where it is/isn't ok to use it, since by doing that you're giving people a road map on how to abuse whatever contrived legal iteration you come up with.

edit: changed to add "bp + boosting move", since thats a very simple ban to explain and works just as well

 

[Oglemi]

At some point, I'm wondering why we should keep protecting a move that has been causing issues on our two biggest competitive venues: the ladder and our tournaments.

Because I would argue the move is benign more often than it is malignant. That's why going ham on totally removing non-broken strategies by suggesting a blanket BP + boosting move is, to me, a bad decision to make when concerning the move (or banning it outright).

I would far rather we mod our sim and go with koko's suggestion, which again addresses the actual broken culprits for everything presented (BD Pass, SmashPass, GeoPass, QuiverPass, and most importantly BP chains), but also doesn't neuter the non-broken strategies.

 

[Zarel]

What about banning Baton Passing boosts in more than one stat? That would ban everything listed as broken but still allow approximately half of McMeghan's list of collateral victims.

Alternatively: ban Baton Passing boosts in more than one stat only when one of the stats is Speed. That allows CMPassing but still bans everything that's broken. It allows for full Baton Pass as long as they don't do +Spe, but I don't know exactly how broken that is.

 

[-Tsunami-]

I agree that we should just ban the move Baton Pass itself or BP + Boosting move; either is fine since they basically achieve the same result. Baton Pass strategies have always been the thing that no one wants to play against in a tournament, and have been the cause of many ragequits and bouts of anger. We don't know what's going to happen in the future of Pokemon with Gen 7 and beyond, and the other complex bans may not be able to solve future issues; granted, we can look at this again if and when those situations arise, but I would personally just rather end this here and I'm sure many people would want to as well. This move has actually been a consistent problem throughout the generations; Jorgen did pretty well with full BP in SPL too, acquiring some losses along the way due to people being completely prepared since they knew he would bring it. Regardless, he still defeated Mr.E pretty easily with it in Week 9.

As many of you know, I have been spamming Baton Pass strategies in Smogon Tour for the sole purpose of frustrating my opponents. These strategies are insanely good; in a 3 week span, I got 9 points in XY, 3 points in BW (this wasn't Dual Screen Smashpass though, just Nelson's HO team with Gorebyss + Wobbuffett) (I got 5 points with Dual Screen Smashpass last week), and 9 points in DPP. During the first XY week, I even got 7 points in another tour. I pretty much only used these strategies throughout the tournaments, and they are ridiculously effective. I didn't even know full BP existed in DPP, but denissss definitely proved how viable that is. Baton Pass as a move just continues to be a problem, and I think it's about time we finally put an end to this move. If you don't wish to go that far, banning Baton Pass + Boosting move is a fine option as well. People will continue to find ways to abuse this move, and I'd personally rather just get rid of the root of the problem instead giving people like denissss an opportunity to find more ways to frustrate the community with some new broken strategy.

 

[Sam]

So there's been a few good points about the complexity of banning BP that have been brought up on IRC.

I think first an important distinction needs to be made about whether we want to ban BP + boosting moves (or 3 boosts, whatever it is) or actually clause the use of BP + boost. It may seem a little pedantic but it would have pretty important implications for some examples:

1.) A Celebi has both SD and BP. BP can't be used to pass the boosts, but it can be used for scouting or for escaping Pursuit. It can use BP in this capacity until it SD's, at which point it can no longer BP (this is a case where the use of the move is 'legitimate'). Under a total ban, this moveset would be illegal.

2.) Something like Acupressure + BP (haven't looked up what learns it, at the very least Smeargle can). It could be used to pass a single boost, or 3 or more depending on what boosts the user gets. This would only really matter if we would clause 3 boosts + pass or outright ban it (which would leave this strategy in a grey area)

3.) Fusxfaranto pointed out that banning boosts + BP would complicate things when something like Swagger comes in to play. Would a user be able to BP under a boost + BP ban if they were swaggered? What about if they CM'd and then were swaggered under the 3 boosts + BP ban?

 

[Joim]

Note: if necessary, it's very easy to keep track of who boosted whom.

 

[McMeghan]

Got this PM from the BP Master himself:

 

[kokoloko]

full bp into espy with boosted defenses no pls

 

[ryan]

at least you can crit that

i like his idea a lot actually

 

[kokoloko]

they call me substitute

 

[Oglemi]

ya but how threatening is the chain going to be when you can conceivably at least Taunt it with something faster or prevent the defense-boosting mons from getting more than a single boost if you're faster (most of the defense boosters hang around base 70 iirc, aside from Scolipede but no Speed Boost, so it shouldn't be that hard to stop)?

 

[Zarel]

Man, his proposal is very similar to my proposal, but of course you guys ignore mine. >:(

 

[gorgie]

i really dislike how the default action these days is to just ban things as opposed to encourage more efficient use of 'resources' at hand to help mitigate whatever the ban target(s) is/are. Resources in this "baton pass clausing" case for example could be "better teambuilding strategies".

are you guys really going to nerf legitimately competitive strategies across generations with a blanket ban simply because the majority "likes what theyre used to" and are too lazy to explore more accessible options? (via teambuilding, readjusting battle style etc)

re: generations im more referring to older gens like adv/dp because i understand as the possibilities expand with the introduction of new shit, bans in the newer gens are inevitable and even sometimes "the most logical route to go", as the number of "possibilities" increase way more rapidly than the number of "tools". (though i still strongly believe there will always be ways around this given all the tools that were already available and the new ones that become available).

why can't things like baton pass be factored into teambuilding just as much as "calm mind suicune" and "perish song trapping" etc? i mean, thats how we used to do it back in the day and everything turned out super fine as far as i can remember!

See a lead smeargle? could be sleep move/sub/bp/bellly drum; gotta be mindful of that! Being mindful wasnt enough to prevent your ass getting kicked in? fix your fucking team.

dont know how to? ah, go attend a team building workshop or something.

Move likes Haze and Whirlwind do not exist for nothing!

 

[M Dragon]

Got this PM from the BP Master himself:

Problem is that Agility passing is not broken at all. Why should it be banned?

@ADV I would be fine with banning BD + BP and using the german BP clause (max 2 BPers)

 

[Bedschibaer]

I think the question we should ask ourselves beforehand is if baton pass strategies are different from any other "cheap but ok" strategies (i'd argue gen 5 dragmag is pretty cheap for example, but not a problem in the sense how bp is at the moment). The problem with baton pass is that it is way more formulatic than anything else in competitive pokemon, everyone who understands the basics of the game can make it far with baton pass (see the last couple of suspect ladders) with little to no effort. People just take someone elses team and can instantly use it to great effect without needing to be very skilled. The difference to some noob playing some good ho rmt and making it far in a tourney is, that most of those baton pass strategies are just flat out free wins vs a huge variety of teams because things that reliably counter most of those strats are pretty niche (see haze, what does it effectively do apart from countering baton pass? What is its distribution? Will people even use that when you face bp like what, 5 out of 100 matches?). Especially since many things don't even reliably beat bp, bp has a way to play around perish song, but when playing against bp there just aren't many ways to play around it other than hoping for a well timed crit or secodary effect when you got a shitty lead matchup and your opp has the momentum. I'd say that alone makes bp pretty "broken" or "uncompetitive tm", but maybe i'm wrong, maybe the metagame can adapt like floppy said. Speaking of: the analogy to cm cune or perishtrap doesn't quite apply, since their counters/checks can serve many other uses. I don't think I have to give examples how a zapdos does more than just hardcheck a suicune but haze doesn't do many things effectively apart from countering bp. I guess that is what people who play the tiers actively should find out.
"Move likes Haze and Whirlwind do not exist for nothing!" - that logic only applies in a perfect world where gamefreak would've created an actually balanced game.

 

[Jorgen]

I'm late to the party but Isa's right, BP isn't a huge problem in GSC. The main problem people seem to have in later gens is with full BP chains, which aren't really viable in GSC. The real dangerous form of GSC BP is AgiPass, which is very forcing and can score some quick wins with a combination of surprise and team matchup, but on the flip side, it's vulnerable to very bad team matchups and requires some ballsy play to work even in good matchups.

All of of my wins with it in SPL involved a good team matchup and an inaccuracy on my opponent's end; the one game where I didn't get to capitalize on a slip-up was vs. IFM, and that one ended with an unceremonious whimper on my part. So it's definitely counterable with precise play, but even if you're worried about scrubs fishing for that imprecise play for more wins than they should receive against better, but ultimately imperfect opponents, it's not really all that easy to play GSC BP well.

 

[Zarel]

Problem is that Agility passing is not broken at all. Why should it be banned?

Then you'd love to read my post, which contains the exact same proposal except it doesn't ban Agilipass:

Alternatively: ban Baton Passing boosts in more than one stat only when one of the stats is Speed. That allows CMPassing but still bans everything that's broken. It allows for full Baton Pass as long as they don't do +Spe, but I don't know exactly how broken that is.

Apparently no one reads my posts. :|

 

[atomicllamas]

I guess I don't understand why everyone is jumping to do some weird complex plan to universally limit Baton Pass when its clear that depending on the generation as well as the meta games the problems are pretty different, (different enough that you can't make a clause across all four gens with out a lot of stupid collateral damage). I don't understand why we don't just ban the things in the OP, instead of trying to cover them all in some weird blanket ban. For example, in ORAS, we could just ban Shell Smash and Baton Pass on the same set, as well as the move Geomancy, as those are the broken strategies. "B-but, atomicllamas, what if Quiver pass is broken!?!??!" We cross that bridge when we come to it, just cause we don't ban something now doesn't mean we can't ban it in the future (also if Quiver Pass is broken, are you sure the problem just isn't Smeargle o_o). I thought that Smogon's philosophy was to ban the broken mon / item / strategy with as little collateral damage as possible, and to keep bans as simple as possible. Instead of coming up with a ban that states something along the lines of, "No Baton Passing boosts in more than one stat if one of the boosted stats is speed," a simple list of banned move combinations is much easier to understand for someone entering a meta game, sure its more rules, but no shell smash + bp is a lot clearer than the former. Instead of rushing to come up with a solution to the problem as well as any problem that could arise in the future, fixing the current problems (covered by the OP) and then addressing issues that arise later seems like a better strategy.

The only problem mentioned in the OP that can't be addressed by either limiting the number of BP users on a team or by banning BP + "insert move" is the gen 4 Gliscor thing, which there is probably a different solution to. And BP + move ban already has precedent as in Gen 5 RU Shell Smash + Baton Pass was banned.

 

[M Dragon]

Then you'd love to read my post, which contains the exact same proposal except it doesn't ban Agilipass:



Apparently no one reads my posts. :|

Oh I did read your post and I think it might work, I was just answering to denisss proposal.

@gsc: there is a very cheap strat with sleep + trap smeargle that can be very annoying if you dont have restalk roar, that works like the ml + cr umbreon but without needing luck

 

[Mekkah]

i really dislike how the default action these days is to just ban things as opposed to encourage more efficient use of 'resources' at hand to help mitigate whatever the ban target(s) is/are. Resources in this "baton pass clausing" case for example could be "better teambuilding strategies".

dont know how to? ah, go attend a team building workshop or something.

Move likes Haze and Whirlwind do not exist for nothing!

Instinctively, I agree with this sentiment, but I'm pretty sure countering Baton Pass is just not that simple. I don't have the relevant competitive 'mons knowledge to address this but I think this does need to be addressed by someone who does, because this is how a lot of people feel and what needs to be explained to the userbase at large.

 

[gorgie]

"haze and whirlwind" were only selected examples here by the way; they're not the only means of stopping bp.

most of the times experience will be a huge help fighting against these teams as well.

 

[Eo Ut Mortus]

I completely agree with Floppy. Baton Pass has always been niche; only recently has it emerged as a more viable metagame strategy. As such, many teambuilders have historically neglected to allot the necessary amount of resources to cover it. With Baton Pass's recent burst of popularity, teambuilders find themselves confronted with a new threat they must address, but find they have insufficient resources to cover it, in addition to everything they have already been covering. So, the response is to ban something, and that something is Baton Pass, not because it is truly broken, but because the metagame was not centered around covering it. It seems broken/cheap because people are not prepared to adapt to it, because the metagame's most standard teams that are the "only" solution against all the various more legitimized team archetypes cannot adequately deal with Baton Pass chains. If you look at this thread, you can see this same logic at work, but applied to a different team archetype. The problem is not truly Baton Pass; the problem is the number of available Pokemon and strategies has evolved that we no longer have a sufficient amount of resources to cover all of them, and strategies deemed less important are subject to additional scrutiny only because they weren't prioritized to begin with.

Anyway, I don't agree with banning Baton Pass, but if it's going to be banned, might as well ban the move itself altogether. We enacted complex bans in the past in order to preserve strategic diversity; if we are discussing a Baton Pass ban, it's because the amount of strategic diversity in the metagame is a problem.

I also acknowledge the various arguments about how Baton Pass is "formulaic" and "cheap," but I don't agree with them because there are many degrees to which a team can be formulaic, and it seems arbitrary to draw the line at Baton Pass when styles such as HO/DragSpam exist. Of course, these teams have not been up for discussion because nobody really cares about the principle of strategic complexity; it's just an excuse to ban Baton Pass.

(Note: mostly talking about BW and later)