Gen 6 [Read Post #44]Evasion Discussion Thread

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Good evening!

Due to the rising level of complaints about Evasion teams on the ladder, Fireburn and I had a discussion tonight on the correct course of action to take regarding a potential Evasion Clause. There is no question that Evasion introduces a significant element of luck into Pokemon, especially with Minimize getting buffed to a 1.67x increase per turn (thanks, Game Freak!). As Ubers in an official tier now, Fireburn and I feel that matches should be as skill-based as humanely possible. While Pokemon will always involve a degree of luck -- critical hits, Thunder Wave hax, and Sleep Talk rolls being notable examples -- games featuring Evasion will often be determined entirely by luck unless you bring a counter, like Calm Mind Clefable. Either you hit the Double Team Geomancy Xerneas / Stored Power Espeon with Precipice Blades, or you don't. In an ideal metagame, the better player should be able to beat the lesser player more often than not, but by bringing Evasion, the lesser player can "even the playing field," so to speak.

When most people think of Evasion, they think of Baton Pass chains. These are certainly part of the reason Fireburn and I are concerned about it. Baton Pass users are almost amusing in their ability to knock off capable players who happen to lack answers for BP chains / get unlucky with evasion, then wheel around and lose to a lower ladder player who leads with max speed Sub Geo Xern because they have no way to beat it. Although those incredibly match-up & luck based teams (which require minimal metagame knowledge to use) are an issue, please note that those teams are not the only way to abuse Evasion. For example, Pokemon like Extreme Killer Arceus and Geomancy Xerneas can EASILY bypass their checks with a lucky Thunder Wave or Will-O-Wisp miss, and fitting Double Team in the Refresh / Aromatherapy / coverage slot isn't that difficult. Note that Ubers has had an Evasion Clause in the past (early BW), and that was before Ubers became an official tier.

The purpose of the last two paragraphs was to establish the reason for this thread's existence. You are free to argue for or against a potential Evasion Clause in this thread. Replay evidence and mathematical arguments provide a great way to bolster your argument if you choose to go that route. Please do NOT use this thread to talk about other potential bans, specifically Pokemon that you think are overcentralizing or Uncompetitive™. This thread really isn't the place for it, and anyone who brings up potential bans on anything other than Evasion will be infracted. This thread will not be used as precedent for future bans. Focus specifically on why you think Evasion should stay or be banned from Ubers.

Remember that the questions we want answers to are the following: Do you think Evasion has enough of an impact on the game to warrant it being removed? Is the luck element significant enough and is it actually used enough that we should implement Evasion Clause?

Thank you!
 
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Gee, this reminds me of Mega Brellow/Metal Brellow during the S-tag suspect tests. He wanted S-tag Banned so his Evasion BP team couldn't be stopped by PSong M-Gar.

Anyways, I feel like re-implementing the evasion clause doesn't come with any downsides. We are just removing another element of luck, after all, similar to the Swagger and Moody Clauses.
 
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Theorymon

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I mean, we already ban Swagger and Moody at this point, and both of those strategies have very heavy luck based elements. I think banning evasion is fine. Are we really going to lose any of Uber's "character" from this? Basically, it removes a shaky luck based strategy that wasn't too great anyways.

And this is coming from someone who now mostly specializes in Nintendo metagames now, where OHKO, evasion, swagger, and moody are allowed! I think banning evasion is just remaining consistent with what has already been always banned in Ubers.
 
Personally I would not mind seeing an Evasion Clause implemented considering my main reasoning for accepting it earlier was due to Ubers acting as a banlist. If the Ubers community is very adamant about maintaining the idea of a competitively balanced tier that discourages unreasonable probability situations, then I could be in complete agreement.
However, unlike most other tiers, Ubers can be very difficult to take advantage of, er, strategies, such as BP or Minimize spam. It's difficult enough to create scenarios that allow for more than one turn of set up due to the amount of sheer offensive presence in this meta. Combine this with the fact that general usage of evasion waters down to lower ladder, its difficult to pinpoint a serious problem that plagues Ubers.
Ultimately, I believe there will be no drawback from banning evasion in Ubers, it's just a matter of considering it necessary enough to ban in the first place (which as above posts have stated, would require the philosophy of a skill-oriented meta).
 

Mr.378

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Not much to say here. Evasion moves really add nothing but a random element to the tier. We have previous bans on not just moves but abilities that add nothing but randomness in favor of the user, so evasion should be included with them. It only adds an element of chance that is stacked in favor of the user. While Evasion may not be as extreme as say moody is, it still adds nothing to the tier and falls perfectly in line with what we have already decided is okay to remove from ubers.

Thus, the evasion clause should be reinstated in the ubers tier.
 

AM

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Do you think Evasion has enough of an impact on the game to warrant it being removed?
Well the fact of the matter is that it can and it has considering the notion of the clause is being considered in the first place. I don't see how this is particularly different to the luck based elements that are seen in Moody and Swagger, obviously to a different extent but the element of luck is still there.
Is the luck element significant enough and is it actually used enough that we should implement Evasion Clause?
Significant enough yes. Used enough I don't think is a valid argument if you're saying that little usage shouldn't be enough to warrant a clause if the clause itself is designed to remove a detriment to what is considered a thorn in the side of Ubers for becoming a more official and competitive tier.
 

Minority

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This is about 8 months late.

That aside I don't see how anyone can really argue in favor of keeping evasion, especially considering how much Ubers has changed recently and has gone to the point of outright banning a Pokemon.

The simple matter is that there is no reason to protect evasion because it doesn't contribute any interesting assets to the tier and its existence only hurts Ubers.

I'm happy this step was taken. While the tournament scene hasn't really been impacted by evasion's legality, the ladder has, and it's a big turnoff to new players exploring Ubers for the first time. Countless times I have seen in the Ubers room how people making honest attempts to get into the tier are deterred by stupid cheese strats like evasion, and it's great that the tier leaders have finally shown support for the primary source of new Ubers players rather than focusing solely on what affects the meager top percentage of players.
 

Shurtugal

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Personally don't think misses from evasion are luck-based if a user is causing their evasion to boost. That's just a statistical advantage, no different than if you had a 30% chance to burn repeated over a string of three attemps; the probability of a single success increases over the amount of attempts, and the percentage constantly increases with evasion...

So yeah. Get rid of this. It's not a luck factor, it's turning luck into a statistical, mindless statistical game (except odds favor the evasion player). It's not a matter of if you'll miss, but when you'll miss, and how frequently, and the chances just get better for the evasion player over the course of the match.
 

Krauersaut

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With the knowledge that Ubers is an official tier and is on the same "as competitive as possible" mindset as the other tiers mentioned in the OP, I'd be all for an Evasion ban. I can't see any significant downside, beyond a few complaints from angry ladder players whom (ab)use it and the generic "fuck smogon u gais ban everything lulz!?1@%#". We are a meta that's evolved from RBY Mewtwo to the point of official recognition and balance, and banning an Inherently Uncompetitive™ strategy would only help cement us as a serious and enjoyable tier, all Smogmog threads aside. As mentioned above by Minority Suspect, it doesn't bring anything to the game but another RNG roll that understandably ticks off its victim.

tl;dr - We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by giving Evasion the boot. n_n
 
Minimize has no viable users. A single Double Team boost only gives you 25% chance of evading a move which puts the player using the move at a disadvantage. Even if an evasion user managers to hax his way to a victory, it doesn't prove that evasion is broken because skill is not proved by winning a single battle, it is proved by winning many battles and a player who relies on Double Team will not win over many battles.

Evasion + Baton Pass has been heavily nerfed this meta and has received no buffs. An evasion pass user fighting against a Primal Groudon has to guess between moves like Lava Plume, Roar, Dragon Tail, Earthquake/PBlades. Guess the wrong one and the evasion pass user may find themselves down a Pokemon. Back in XY, choice locked Kyogre was easily checked by Gliscor + Vaporeon but in this meta, Primal Kyogre, who is not choice locked, further nerfs evasion pass due to it's strong water moves and perfect accuracy Thunder. Another check includes Perish Song. Mr.Mime doesn't check Perish Song because Mr.Mime dies to Mega Gengar's attacks and a Perish Song from Arceus is unpredictable. Some more evasion pass checks include: Taunt (even better with Prankster), Haze, Clear Smog, Whirlwind, Roar, Dragon Tail, Geomancy, PuP Kang, Mega Diancie, Mega Mewtwo Y, Mega Salamence, Rayquaza, and many more.

Your failures to check such a weak strategy is not a reason to ban it. After reading ignorance in the Ubers chat, there is no point of this thread. The community is going to vote to ban it despite anything I say. Enjoy your evasion-less metagame.
 

Karxrida

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Minimize has no viable users. A single Double Team boost only gives you 25% chance of evading a move which puts the player using the move at a disadvantage. Even if an evasion user managers to hax his way to a victory, it doesn't prove that evasion is broken because skill is not proved by winning a single battle, it is proved by winning many battles and a player who relies on Double Team will not win over many battles.

Evasion + Baton Pass has been heavily nerfed this meta and has received no buffs. An evasion pass user fighting against a Primal Groudon has to guess between moves like Lava Plume, Roar, Dragon Tail, Earthquake/PBlades. Guess the wrong one and the evasion pass user may find themselves down a Pokemon. Back in XY, choice locked Kyogre was easily checked by Gliscor + Vaporeon but in this meta, Primal Kyogre, who is not choice locked, further nerfs evasion pass due to it's strong water moves and perfect accuracy Thunder. Another check includes Perish Song. Mr.Mime doesn't check Perish Song because Mr.Mime dies to Mega Gengar's attacks and a Perish Song from Arceus is unpredictable. Some more evasion pass checks include: Taunt (even better with Prankster), Haze, Clear Smog, Whirlwind, Roar, Dragon Tail, Geomancy, PuP Kang, Mega Diancie, Mega Mewtwo Y, Mega Salamence, Rayquaza, and many more.

Your failures to check such a weak strategy is not a reason to ban it. After reading ignorance in the Ubers chat, there is no point of this thread. The community is going to vote to ban it despite anything I say. Enjoy your evasion-less metagame.
Clefable and Blissey. Clefable is immune to Toxic and Stealth Rock and Blissey already walls a ton of the tier, we don't need to make them impossible to hit. By the way, Dragon Tail has an accuracy check.

I don't even know why there's an argument here. Evasion is infuriating and adds nothing good to the game, get rid of it.
 
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Be it broken or not, it does not really change the fact that Evasion pass is something that is being uncompetitive to the game. Even if there are "countless strategies" available to counter Evasion pass, it does not really matter.

When playing against the playstyle known as Evasion pass, the fact still remains that barring hax (if you count hax then everything can be potentially "uncompetitive" or "broken" since hax occurs everywhere), it boils down to whether have you packed something on your team to stop Evasion pass teams cold in their tracks. If you did, you win (at least most of the time), if you didn't you lose outright unless your opponent is really bad. It doesn't really matter how much you understand the metagame, if you don't pack a countermeasure to Evasion pass, you lose unless you score a timely crit or hope you don't miss multiple moves in a row.

The issue here, is that there is a stark contrast when facing other playstyles, where your ability and experience in the metagame actually allows you a fighting chance to salvage your win despite how the matchup goes, which is what gives the element of competitiveness to this luck-based game. Honestly, I cannot see how Evasion pass does not reduce the competitiveness of the metagame, when the outcomes of matches are decided simply based on whether one side has deliberately counter-teamed the other. The only time I can think of when skill is involved when Evasion pass teams might be concerned would be when both sides are using Evasion pass.

Since Evasion pass Chains are just going to affect the element of competitiveness, at the very least that ought to be stopped.

Just my 2c :pimp:
 

ZoroDark

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I'm looking forward to that^. Anyway, to answer the questions in the OP:

Do you think Evasion has enough of an impact on the game to warrant it being removed? Is the luck element significant enough and is it actually used enough that we should implement Evasion Clause?
Its global impact is only minimal because Evasion fortunately doesn't see any usage in serious or competitive battles. When it gets used, however, it changes the face of the battle to a statistical game. Suddenly the battle hinges on odds of hitting your move, instead of predictions that require skill. So when talking about evasion, the use of the word uncompetitive is validated. As for the question if it's used enough, I can't really say anything about that because it's been a long time since I've laddered on PS. I'll quote Minority Suspect though because I assume he knows what he's talking about: "While the tournament scene hasn't really been impacted by evasion's legality, the ladder has, and it's a big turnoff to new players exploring Ubers for the first time." To be honest, the amount of usage shouldn't really be taken into consideration because if there's a truly toxic element in a metagame, it should always be removed, no matter how small it is. Endless battles were never a big issue in Ubers either, and we got rid of that as well.

tl;dr (not rly): if moody and swagger are banned, it just looks silly to have evasion.
 
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Can somebody show me where a ban like this wouldn't be a complete waste of time? I don't mean link me replays of random ladder matches where team preview will give me a heart attack. How relevant was evasion in any major tournament? Not even BP is seeing the levels of abuse that it saw back in XY where it warranted various bans in subforum tours. At this point in time, you are speculating about the impacts evasion *might* have rather than making observations on the impacts it has had.


Also, since nobody seems to know. Evasion moves take up a moveslot. Roar and Whirlwind also never fail. You can figure out the rest.
 
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Minority

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How relevant was evasion in any major tournament
This mentality needs to stop. The time to take action isn't after evasion ruins a match, it is before. You can't possibly believe that usage is the independent variable when it comes to determining whether evasion belongs or not. It doesn't matter if evasion has been used in whatever tournaments you regard high enough in your opinion to be considered relevant. The nature of evasion is not determined by when and where it is used.

With ORAS matches often being decided by a single turn, a single move missed due to Double Team on a random offensive Pokemon spells doom. You would not be arguing against banning evasion if someone had brought Double Team HO cheese in SPL or UPL and won, but whether it was brought or not isn't the issue. The core problem with evasion is that with slightly favorable luck anyone can plow through conventional checks to Pokemon, just like with a bit of luck Sheer Cold Kyogre can defeat conventional switch-ins. OHKO moves also take up a moveslot and Sturdy always makes them fail, so by your logic I suppose those aren't ban worthy either.
 
This doesn't even need a discussion banning something that is just 100% luck based can only help the metagame I don't see why anyone would oppose of it.
 
This mentality needs to stop. The time to take action isn't after evasion ruins a match, it is before. You can't possibly believe that usage is the independent variable when it comes to determining whether evasion belongs or not. It doesn't matter if evasion has been used in whatever tournaments you regard high enough in your opinion to be considered relevant. The nature of evasion is not determined by when and where it is used.

With ORAS matches often being decided by a single turn, a single move missed due to Double Team on a random offensive Pokemon spells doom. You would not be arguing against banning evasion if someone had brought Double Team HO cheese in SPL or UPL and won, but whether it was brought or not isn't the issue. The core problem with evasion is that with slightly favorable luck anyone can plow through conventional checks to Pokemon, just like with a bit of luck Sheer Cold Kyogre can defeat conventional switch-ins. OHKO moves also take up a moveslot and Sturdy always makes them fail, so by your logic I suppose those aren't ban worthy either.
No it doesn't actually. As I've already stated, you are speculating on what may happen and not what has happened. We've not seen any problems arise from it, much less any attempts to adapt. (cause it's not been an issue!) How can we possibly conclude it deserves to be banned with any sort of credibility?

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned

You should enjoy reading that.

I would call strawman on the OHKO analogy but I can't cause I never actually presented an argument or line of logic, I just gave some facts to serve as a starting point for reflection. I'm still not going to really spell things out. I don't actaully care if evasion is banned or not, I just hate this shitass attitude and approach to the situation.

This doesn't even need a discussion banning something that is just 100% luck based can only help the metagame I don't see why anyone would oppose of it.
Since banning evasion is the change to the status quo, it's on you guys to argue why it should happen. Not sit there and ask somebody to argue against something that hasn't been supported with arguments.

Also the idea that luck = bannable is a huge logical leap that shows you don't actually understand what you are talking about. Sadly, it's very a popular line of thinking and it's often forgivable because in most cases luck based does eventually translate to warranting a ban.
 
I think that a pragmatic approach to this ban is more reasonable than theoretical one. I agree with Optic regarding the theory of evasion. It's a pretty bad and inconsistent strategy. I wouldn't use evasion in any ORAS tournament due to inconsistent nature of evasion. However, if one view evasion pragmatically then it's pretty evident that: Evasion is not fun and contributes minimally to meta. I don't care if evasion doesn't qualify for ban criterion, but it's just annoying and stupid mechanic that we're better off without. I think that we've been very lucky that nobody is running evasion cheese in ORAS tours so far.
 
Melee Mewtwo You bastardized a prestigious tour like spl and made our tier look bad by using evasion pass in an spl game. I don't think a person like you should really comment here. Just leave man or something rly. People be dying to play in spl and you got the chance to do it and used evasion. idk wat to say rly.
About what Minority Suspect said It's completely true. I've heard ladder players complaining to me personally about how evasion pass is annoying to them and my answer was always "Idk why tier leaders don't suspect it". Also this strategy is very bad.
It requires no knowledge or just a bit of it to function. Moreover, I don't see how stall or balance who have shit tons of threats to think about like darkrai for balance or pdon mence etc for stall can afford something on their team for evasion pass. Banning it will remove nothing to the tier besides luck based games and bullshit.
 
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Level 56

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Well evasion is about as uncompetitive as swagger and moody. Its just a bad luck-based strategy which requires no skill at all and it definitely deserves to be removed from the ubers metagame. While it is not used in higher level play such as SPL and UPL, its very harmful for our ladder. It is extremely unhealthy for the metagame to be turned into coinflips. It totally removes the skill aspect of the game which is the reason why evasion is disliked.

Very few people actually like it but for anyone who has experienced the frustration of evasion, without a doubt want evasion removed from ubers. This strategy is mostly met with bad remarks and is toxic to not only to the competitiveness of the tier but also to the ubers community.
 

Jibaku

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The original purpose of the evasion unban / suspect in Gen 5 was to demonstrate the philosophy that Ubers is a tier that functions with as little bans as possible, and evasion simply wasn't making enough of an impact. I felt that this philosophy was important to truly identifying what Ubers is.

However, this does not say that evasion cannot be re-banned. Due to its nature, evasion is something that's either ignorable or noticeably causes a universal negative experience. If it is having enough impact (and apparently it seems like it, hence the purpose of this thread), then I place my support for the re-banning of evasion.
 
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