Eh, I used to hate the idea of this Smeargle set myself, but honestly, as long as Smeargle is its only viable user it's probably not that big a deal.
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[DONE] Uncompetitive Strategies [Baton Pass]
- Thread starter McMeghan
- Start date
I agree with AtomicLLamas, coming up with a blanket ban is unnecessary and going to create problems due to the uniqueness of the gens. It isn't hard to create multiple rules; its actually probably easier. To create a rule that would cover all gens, it would have to be very general. This would leave room for holes (like we saw when we banned full pass) or limit real strategies (like agilipass etc).
As for the people who say that it is just another strat, I don't think thats fair. I will mostly talk about bw and oras, because I know those gens best. What it most fundamentally does is take the game out of the player's hands. While there can be bad matchup and threats in other capacities, against all other strategies you have the capacity to double switch or make aggressive predictions. For example, if you have a stall-weak team vs stall, you can still try to switch aggressively with hazards, or provoke them into misplaying, and so on. If you are weak to a certain threat, you can do your best to limit it's free turns or setup opportunities. But against bp you can't really do that. They don't care about what you are clicking, they just click the boosts, or if need be, click taunt or spore or w.e. There will, however be a couple of threats that can win outright vs BP. Most other things will outright lose. In other words, it actually turns games into being won at team preview. I hate complaining about matchup and think that most matchup complaints are bullshit or overstated. But BP actually creates gigantic matchup disparities by nature. It also lessens the skill gap (a negative in my opinion). It is easy to use, and no one is really better at playing against it, you just click moves and hope to crit. Everyone is on an equal playing field when bp is involved, no matter how experienced, clever, or knowledgable they are. Personally, if I'm going to be playing a children's game, I would like to at least make it be mostly a battle of who is smarter or better at reading the opponent or building, something that takes intelligence and skill. Bp makes the game into simply mashing buttons linearly and hoping things end well due to luck.
As for the people who say that it is just another strat, I don't think thats fair. I will mostly talk about bw and oras, because I know those gens best. What it most fundamentally does is take the game out of the player's hands. While there can be bad matchup and threats in other capacities, against all other strategies you have the capacity to double switch or make aggressive predictions. For example, if you have a stall-weak team vs stall, you can still try to switch aggressively with hazards, or provoke them into misplaying, and so on. If you are weak to a certain threat, you can do your best to limit it's free turns or setup opportunities. But against bp you can't really do that. They don't care about what you are clicking, they just click the boosts, or if need be, click taunt or spore or w.e. There will, however be a couple of threats that can win outright vs BP. Most other things will outright lose. In other words, it actually turns games into being won at team preview. I hate complaining about matchup and think that most matchup complaints are bullshit or overstated. But BP actually creates gigantic matchup disparities by nature. It also lessens the skill gap (a negative in my opinion). It is easy to use, and no one is really better at playing against it, you just click moves and hope to crit. Everyone is on an equal playing field when bp is involved, no matter how experienced, clever, or knowledgable they are. Personally, if I'm going to be playing a children's game, I would like to at least make it be mostly a battle of who is smarter or better at reading the opponent or building, something that takes intelligence and skill. Bp makes the game into simply mashing buttons linearly and hoping things end well due to luck.
I'm gonna go ahead and agree with Tesung here in that the problems with BP more or less isn't something that you can just blanket fix altogether. I'm gonna speak on Gen 6 since that's really what I've become accustomed to as far as my time here on Smogon as a competitive player.
Generation 6 Baton Pass, as far as OU is concerned, is extremely obnoxious at times. It's obnoxious because it allows a passer to pass to something that is already considered the pinnacle of a team and just enhances it further to extremely high levels. Under most circumstances though the obnoxious characteristic of Baton Pass are generally in a combination of two stats, an attack or special attack stat + speed stat. Nasty Plot Celebi + Rock Polish M-Diancie is just one example of this. This example is more or less where people will come from in regards to blanket banning the move, or at least from my perspective this is one prime idea of what a lot of people refer to for blanket banning the move. I personally, think this is ok to an extent. It might be realistically annoying to face and somewhat mindless but it still requires a legitimate thought process to pull off successfully if we're going to assume the two players are capable in a relatively higher capacity.
Smashpass + Kyurem-B is another example, one that is rare but is what I'd consider what would start to push the boundaries of an acceptable use of Baton Pass. You're applying twice the stat increase on a Pokemon that has the ability to ignore other abilities, thus invalidating about every playstyle in one go if played correctly. Outside of priority, which probably won't do the trick either most smashpassing + Kyurem-B strats will use all out attacker with some bulk and with HP Fire making Scizor a liability, chances are you're gonna lose to this considering how these teams are actually built with screens, supplements, etc.
GeoPass breaks the threshold completely in my eyes, to the point that arguing that it holds any sort of real competitive value is a lost cause. I'm going to go out on and limb and say that the nature of these teams and or playstyle is an inherent problem in that anything being passed more than three stats is more than likely going to just break the game in that very instance at that point, by breaking I mean whatever chance the opposing player facing BP had barring matchup and luck. This is the main reason or what I assume it is as to why it's such a problem in Gen 6 so I don't think there is a necessity to go any further.
I can't speak on older gens but again, general clauses for issues like these apparently aren't the way to go about handling this, seeing as how it was attempted twice in Gen 6 but people still manage to exploit loopholes.
Generation 6 Baton Pass, as far as OU is concerned, is extremely obnoxious at times. It's obnoxious because it allows a passer to pass to something that is already considered the pinnacle of a team and just enhances it further to extremely high levels. Under most circumstances though the obnoxious characteristic of Baton Pass are generally in a combination of two stats, an attack or special attack stat + speed stat. Nasty Plot Celebi + Rock Polish M-Diancie is just one example of this. This example is more or less where people will come from in regards to blanket banning the move, or at least from my perspective this is one prime idea of what a lot of people refer to for blanket banning the move. I personally, think this is ok to an extent. It might be realistically annoying to face and somewhat mindless but it still requires a legitimate thought process to pull off successfully if we're going to assume the two players are capable in a relatively higher capacity.
Smashpass + Kyurem-B is another example, one that is rare but is what I'd consider what would start to push the boundaries of an acceptable use of Baton Pass. You're applying twice the stat increase on a Pokemon that has the ability to ignore other abilities, thus invalidating about every playstyle in one go if played correctly. Outside of priority, which probably won't do the trick either most smashpassing + Kyurem-B strats will use all out attacker with some bulk and with HP Fire making Scizor a liability, chances are you're gonna lose to this considering how these teams are actually built with screens, supplements, etc.
GeoPass breaks the threshold completely in my eyes, to the point that arguing that it holds any sort of real competitive value is a lost cause. I'm going to go out on and limb and say that the nature of these teams and or playstyle is an inherent problem in that anything being passed more than three stats is more than likely going to just break the game in that very instance at that point, by breaking I mean whatever chance the opposing player facing BP had barring matchup and luck. This is the main reason or what I assume it is as to why it's such a problem in Gen 6 so I don't think there is a necessity to go any further.
My personal opinion, I wouldn't mind seeing a blanket ban of Baton Pass as far as Gen 6 goes. Let's face it, another loophole is going to be found when we do another complex ban until that happens or we start banning Baton Passers, which may sound ridiculous but Smeargle's position in BL at this moment is due to its support characteristics in supplementing receivers who would otherwise be not broken or manageable under normal circumstances, same deal with Combusken for NU this gen. More than likely smashpass will just takeover and we all know it's supplemented by screens, tailwind, a bunch of support stuff that does turn games into an inherent matchup issue that individuals have stressed about. If anything though you'd more than likely would have to combine the two proposals you stated McMeghan, trust me this generation and pool of players is a bit more creative in exploitation of strategies than the proposal is giving them credit for.Who isn't aware of GeoPass at this point? Denisss made a RMT about it and it's been used by a TON of people on the ladder for fun or brainlessly achieve reqs during Suspect Tests. It now sees Tournament usage. The OU Council plan to take action towards GeoPass soon enough.
- GeoPass
Replays:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-53719
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/oususpecttest-152706284
....many more...
How to get rid of this: Ban Geomancy or Ban Baton Passing more than 2 different stats boosts (if possible)
I can't speak on older gens but again, general clauses for issues like these apparently aren't the way to go about handling this, seeing as how it was attempted twice in Gen 6 but people still manage to exploit loopholes.
Is it a loophole, or is it another strategy involving Baton Pass that isn't broken? There's a very large difference here, and I feel like every time somebody loses to baton pass, they just automatically call it a bullshit strategy even though teams with stat passing can be consistent without dedicating half or more of a team towards supporting it. Don't see how banning Geomancy and SmashPass doesn't take care of the Gen 6 problem, and there's no reason to shoot a ton of legitimate Baton Pass users. I can name eight viable NU Pokemon that run it without being "matchup dependent" or "impossible to prepare for," and it's not even a matter of transitivity because I can tack on another handful for BL and above in OU. This isn't a Pokemon ban. We don't have to blanket ban the whole thing because one or two sets are broken when it will also get rid of a viable to good move on 20-something Pokemon in the process.
ost finals g3 are a great example of why bp should just be gone. no matter how much we limit it, people will find a way to abuse it. strats like that are still just uncompetitive. the game is still going on as i am writing this. did wq getting in scolipede on a free switch, setting up an iron defense and passing to espeon to win the game take skill? no. blunders only way of beating scolipede was consistant doubling to skarmory every single turn while wq just needed 1 free switch to do so, which he could do by letting any member on his team die. this needs to be gone. a tournament shouldnt end like this
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BP needs to be banned in its entirety. The semantics of complex banning just went out the window as far as Gen 6 goes after this recent display of events. If lower tiers want to approach this in a different way fine by me, but as far as OU goes I do not want to see this happen again in both a tournament setting and with OLT around the corner. It's been a month now since this OP as been established and if we're going to improve both ladder and tournament settings this needs to end now. Let's come to a conclusion please.
I don't like to get involved in things like this if I can avoid it, especially when it has to do with tournaments, but this is more than a tournament issue, and I can't help but be annoyed whenever stuff like this comes up. Every time it seems people come in calling something uncompetitive, but refuse to really give reasons why. As hollywood said:
I get that people don't like it for some reason that I personally do not comprehend, but if you are going to try and claim something is uncompetitive, you should back it up with more than circular logic (ie "its uncompetitive cause it doesn't take skill") and irrelevant facts (ie "it won a tournament and that is stupid").
The following post by aim only seems to confirm this as basically what it is saying is "X was decided by BP, and that is bullshit and doesn't take skill." I'm sorry, but just cause you say it doesn't take skill does not make that the truth. Like seriously, you get a Pokemon in, boost with it, and pass to something else. How is that any less skill based than getting a Pokemon in, setting up and sweeping? This is not Swagger or something. There is no luck. It is a strategy reliant only on player choice. This is especially true now that you can only have one passer per team, as you can't even take advantage of knowing a switch to always get the upper hand.
I get that people don't like it for some reason that I personally do not comprehend, but if you are going to try and claim something is uncompetitive, you should back it up with more than circular logic (ie "its uncompetitive cause it doesn't take skill") and irrelevant facts (ie "it won a tournament and that is stupid").
I'd rather not see Baton Pass banned in its entirety. As Hollywood said above there are plenty of relevant mons that run Baton Pass as a pseudo U-turn for momentum. Banning Baton Pass would effectively neuter an entire strategy of gaining momentum. This strategy is rather good as you can use things such as Musharna, Mawile, and Togetic as bulky pivots switching in and then Baton Passing out for momentum on your forced switch. Things like Leafeon, Floatzel, and Flareon also force switches offensively and are able to grab momentum against checks / counters by pivoting on the switch. Baton Pass has been huge in multiple tour games in NU, not for passing boosts, but for grabbing momentum.
List of relevant NU Baton Pass users that use it for Momentum: Flareon, Floatzel, Leafeon, Mawile, Musharna, Sawsbuck, Shedinja, Togetic
I do agree that something needs to be done about passing off boosts, but completely banning it isn't something I'm for. I would much rather have a complex ban of you can't pass +4 of something or +2 / +2 of something. This would stop boosts from getting passed but keep legitimate strategies in place.
On another note, Stored Power is a pretty big problem when dealing with Baton Pass as Unaware users ignore the boosts but not the Stored Power boosts. So your normal setup sweeper check gets beat by Baton Pass'd boosts.
List of relevant NU Baton Pass users that use it for Momentum: Flareon, Floatzel, Leafeon, Mawile, Musharna, Sawsbuck, Shedinja, Togetic
I do agree that something needs to be done about passing off boosts, but completely banning it isn't something I'm for. I would much rather have a complex ban of you can't pass +4 of something or +2 / +2 of something. This would stop boosts from getting passed but keep legitimate strategies in place.
On another note, Stored Power is a pretty big problem when dealing with Baton Pass as Unaware users ignore the boosts but not the Stored Power boosts. So your normal setup sweeper check gets beat by Baton Pass'd boosts.
It's illogical to use the OST finals as the basis for banning Baton Pass when there are myriad other things that 6-0 stall teams with little to no counterplay. The most recent posts citing it as example are excessively emotional and biased overreactions with little basis in argumentation and are, in my opinion, inappropriate for this discussion.
In the current gen 6 metagame, there is a massive discrepancy between the amount of resources at one's disposal and the amount of threats one must consider. Moreover, stall inherently has fewer counterplay options than other team archetypes: if you choose to use stall, you are deliberately restricting yourself in your ability to outplay poor match-ups. Consequently, losing to match-up is an inevitable reality that anyone who currently uses stall must face. Building a stall team is akin to being given a ship with 20 holes and enough material to patch 15 of them.
If you see this as a problem, then the solution might be to ban things, but a Baton Pass ban does not logically follow from this premise alone. Many other teams would have just as easily won the OST finals solely due to match-up, and many other strategies and Pokemon combinations cannot be beaten by vanilla stall.
If you see this as a problem, then the solution might be to ban things, but a Baton Pass ban does not logically follow from this premise alone. Many other teams would have just as easily won the OST finals solely due to match-up, and many other strategies and Pokemon combinations cannot be beaten by vanilla stall.
Am I blind or what cuz did I not just see blunder let WQ just boost with Scoli to a ridiculous amount and then BP, and then get lucked from a crit rather than outplayed (if what was said about Exca's EV spread true)? How is this at all relevant to wanting the BP ban? Luck is always a part of the game lol
Echoing the rest of what Eo said here
Echoing the rest of what Eo said here
Blunder's only way to stop Scolipede from passing was having Skarmory in before or get in on the same turn that Scolipede does. The 5 other mons were set up fodder for Scolipede. WQ got to boost because he forced a bunch of '50/50s' with his Breloom vs blunder's Skarmory: If he Spore the Skarmory, this means Skarmory can potentially become set up fodder for Scolipede too, which blunder can't afford. blunder's options were to switch into Venusaur on it (or another Pokemon, tbh) and let that Pokemon take the sleep instead of Skarmory, but there was the posibility that WQ double switches to Scolipede. WQ had a lot more options than blunder to get the win. He simply had to let something die against blunder's other Pokemon or simply PP stall Skarmory, which isn't too hard with 2 Magic Bouncer users among other 'mons. Blunder couldn't stop WQ from passing the boosts if Scolipede got in 1 turn before Skarmory because Magic Bounce negates Whirlwind.
That is pretty much how most games with Baton Pass go. They usually have the upper hand against their opponents since they just need to find a 1-2 turn window to pass boosts, which any player can pull off with a team designed to handle common ways to stop sweeps ( Taunt, Phazing, Unaware (with Stored Power)). You either have to use uncommon moves such as Perish Song, Haze, or one of the few Pokemon that has good matchup against BP recipients to have a good chance against those type of teams.
IMO the issue is BP boosts + Magic Bounce in ORAS, since its clear that stuff like SDpass Celebi + Sharpedo are just fine.
sorry for my last post, just me getting mad 9.9
You'd also think on a heavy stall team you'd think to bring one of those "uncommon" methods to stop a big threat like BP or more common setup sweepers, but that might just be me.
And ftr I wasn't necessarily discrediting blunder's choice of play, since it probably was a good play if that was Exca's EV spread, my main point was that he was crit, not rly beat by BP.
However, and this is also tangential, I find it odd that considering the biggest threat on that team was Stored Power Espeon, why he chose to go for that play when he could have still limited Scoli to fewer boosts. I don't want to really get into this too much, but idt it was really his only play, but I also don't know exactly how threatening a +2 Speed/+2 Defense Espeon/Diancie/whatever are to blunder's team.
Maybe I'm stupid, but doesn't that Espeon set beat that team by itself after Excadrill died? I still think the problems addressed in the OP should just be banned and then we proceed from there. A full bp is a pretty clumsy (and rash) way to deal with this situation.
If we do any BP ban at all, "no passing Speed boosts" is probably the simplest one that interferes with the fewest other strategies.
Second place is "no passing Speed boosts along with other boosts", which trades slightly more complexity for less interference with AgiliPass.
Second place is "no passing Speed boosts along with other boosts", which trades slightly more complexity for less interference with AgiliPass.
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I won't comment on the rest because we will just end up theorymonning a game when it is not the topic
I know we are talking about Stall atm, but what I said above is true for every type of teams.
e: about the whole 'Why did he not go Skarmory to limit the boosts?', I found out after my posts that Blunder had Toxic on his Excadrill and could tank a +1 300BP Stored Power from full (he had like 252HP / 176 SpDef), so his best play was to break Espeon's Substitute while it gets +1 SpA and Toxic on the next turn after taking the hit, which would have allowed him to stall Espeon out with Chansey. Had he went Skarmory instead, chances are that Espeon would have had +3 SpA, +2 Spe, +2 Def, which could kill Excadrill:
+3 0 SpA Espeon Stored Power (220 BP) vs. 252 HP / 176 SpD Excadrill: 416-489 (98.1 - 115.3%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
+1 0 SpA Espeon Stored Power (300 BP) vs. 252 HP / 176 SpD Excadrill: 339-400 (79.9 - 94.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
So yeah blunder got haxed, but thats another topic (and WQ could have not risked Toxic Excadrill too).
e2: OK this game is probably not relevant to this topic, but atleast it should make you understand that BP in Tournaments are still getting used (WCOP is starting next week too, so who knows if some people will abuse it there), and it would be really awesome if we could take a decision about BP.
The issue is that while BP is really good, it is not as common as other strategies. To add to that, you have to use uncommon moves / 'mons to cover BP most of the time (esp on Stall), which aren't as good against the most common strategies. Sure there's some good Pokemon that also can deal with BP, but we shouldn't be forced to run them on every teams (that's kinda like overcentralization, I think). So what does the player do? He decides to cover the most common threats. I guess we could say that it was the player's decision to be weak to BP, but who would want to win against a strategy that few people use just to have worst matchup against strategies that are used so much more?
I know we are talking about Stall atm, but what I said above is true for every type of teams.
e: about the whole 'Why did he not go Skarmory to limit the boosts?', I found out after my posts that Blunder had Toxic on his Excadrill and could tank a +1 300BP Stored Power from full (he had like 252HP / 176 SpDef), so his best play was to break Espeon's Substitute while it gets +1 SpA and Toxic on the next turn after taking the hit, which would have allowed him to stall Espeon out with Chansey. Had he went Skarmory instead, chances are that Espeon would have had +3 SpA, +2 Spe, +2 Def, which could kill Excadrill:
+3 0 SpA Espeon Stored Power (220 BP) vs. 252 HP / 176 SpD Excadrill: 416-489 (98.1 - 115.3%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
+1 0 SpA Espeon Stored Power (300 BP) vs. 252 HP / 176 SpD Excadrill: 339-400 (79.9 - 94.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
So yeah blunder got haxed, but thats another topic (and WQ could have not risked Toxic Excadrill too).
e2: OK this game is probably not relevant to this topic, but atleast it should make you understand that BP in Tournaments are still getting used (WCOP is starting next week too, so who knows if some people will abuse it there), and it would be really awesome if we could take a decision about BP.
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One thing that is slightly bothering me is the lack of reference to Scolipede in the OP, given that banning baton pass outright appears unlikely. From my, admittedly very limited, experience on the ladder, Scolipede Pass is more of a problem than GeoPass or SmashPass. Usage stats from May have Scolipede at 2.687% usage, whereas Smeargle (0.859%) and Gorebyss (0.160%) have about a third of the usage of Scolipede combined. Admittedly, Scolipede does have other sets that it can run, but Scolipede runs Baton Pass on 65% of all sets, and Iron Defense on 30% (ignoring SD here, because apparently that's different from something like GliscorPass despite passing the exact same stat changes), so it feels odd to have that particular scenario not mentioned as the subject of a potential complex ban, if we are going to settle on the combination of complex bans specified in the OP.
No speed boosts is probably the option with the least collateral damage, but the only reason I would be hesitant to go with that option would be the possibility that we would just be dancing around the problem again, as opposed to addressing the actual problem in this issue.
No speed boosts is probably the option with the least collateral damage, but the only reason I would be hesitant to go with that option would be the possibility that we would just be dancing around the problem again, as opposed to addressing the actual problem in this issue.
I dont particularly care about what happens with Baton Pass as much as I despise the strategy, but if youre gonna tackle it by banning Baton Pass altogether please keep that ban away from ADV. Baton Pass Celebi is perhaps the best Celebi set (and Celebi is like a top 5 mon in ADV) and its not worth losing a great set that enhances overall gameplay just because we couldnt think of a better way to deal with Smeargle. This is without mentioning some Zapdos sets, as well as Jolteon who enjoys either dry passing in order to get around his counters (ie when Spikes are up) or using a niche but effective bulky sub pass set as utility for the team. Theres also boosting pass sets such as Lunatone and Solrock, and although theyre good in some situations, more often than not theyre very easy to play around. They, however, add another dimension to the game that is very appreciated. And of course, how to forget the OG stall killer in Mean Pass Umbreon (or Misdreavus, shoutouts that one brazilian who used it in tour like 3 years ago) who is pretty useless unless against full stall, which some teams really appreciate having a counter to. And even then, Mean Pass Umbreon can still be managed by stall (if you dont know how ill gladly explain).
Basically, Baton Pass has a lot of uses in ADV that arent exclusively limited to super random and rare strategies or "uncompetitive" ones such as full BP chains (as we already dealt with the annoying full bp chains in ADV), so please do not enforce a ban on Baton Pass, its fine as it is.
Basically, Baton Pass has a lot of uses in ADV that arent exclusively limited to super random and rare strategies or "uncompetitive" ones such as full BP chains (as we already dealt with the annoying full bp chains in ADV), so please do not enforce a ban on Baton Pass, its fine as it is.
Not gonna pretend to be an ADV master, but for that Belly Pass team it seems far more appropriate policy to ban Smeargle if it is the only mon that even learns the combo. This also, unless I missed a mon, takes away the only ingrain passer, which makes the original complex ban obsolete.
Why was Smeargle kept around anyway if it has 2 broken sets in Ingrain (banned) and Belly Drum (still around)?
Why was Smeargle kept around anyway if it has 2 broken sets in Ingrain (banned) and Belly Drum (still around)?
Just wondering: I know this might sound stupid but is it possible to apply a clause that doesn't allow to make baton pass work when the user has boosted stats? That would solve the problem without banning anything (even if it is actually a sort of ban).
Despite this question, I personally feel that we can't generalize the bpass issue across generations. The point is different in Adv than ORAS/BW as example while DPP looks like in a middle way.
Unlike the OP said, I wanna see the issue from a point of view regarding a likely BP + boost because I believe this is the best solution to get rid of the issue as Tennisace said. A lot of people would disagree but, as also McMeghan said, every other different way to solve this problem seemd not working enough, and this was ok since BP issue only regarded non-tournaments games for the majority of cases because even if BP strategies always looked awfully cheap, people didn't use them in tours for several reasons like matchup issues (this applies mainly for 3-4 gen where magic bounce wasn't a thing), fear of the hax (the only safe way to beat this strategy together with that horrible and uncommon move which is Haze) and mostly sense of "sport" because, as you can see reading comments of almost every battle involving BP, user who runs BP strat was usually considered as a dick.
Things changed (see McM references), and so it should change also the way to deal with this problem.
I state that I won't focus on full BP chains because they can all be settled down with BP clause (we might allow 2 users instead of just 1 for what regards gen 3 -and maybe 4-, while in gen 2 I would like to keep things as they currently are)
So, I would like to start with ADV while it feels like the "common sense of playerbase" don't see BP itself as an issue but just in really few cases:
- the evil drum pass (smeargle)
- perish trap pass (umbreon + lax/cune + Magne to trap skarm and deal with other common phazers as zap/cune/swamp)
Adv phazers are quite common since they are one of the most used ways to deal with ddancers like mence/tar (swamp/skarm) or cm stuff (zapdos/suicune) so bpass seems not that evil (just raikou could be a threat but dugtrio destroys its dreams). A BP + boost ban here should compromise other solid and stable sets like Celebi's, which is one of the most used and effective mon of the tier (this is really important), definitely not broken (annoying tho) and with a lot of ways to play around it.
In shorts: every team of every playstyle shouldn't have issues with BP because the metagame's general perspective allows to play around it without giving an entire slot (or just a single move) "just to deal with bpass".
The problem here is definitely not BP but smeargle drumpassing (and also umbreon trap passing but w/e) so a complex ban would be acceptable.
DPP:
Huge differences with Adv. Now scarf users can revengekill statup mons so offensive teams don't need necessarily a phazer and also some kind of balances don't have to "force" one in them. Number of mons is raised so teambuilding issue inevitably raised, despite a good number of bans which appeased the "power creep" issue. In all of this, BP issue finds more difficulties to have a full slot dedicated for, but generically phazers are quite common (skarmory swamp hippo etc). Note that some kind of teams really find hard to deal with BP now so the matchup discrepancy became more a thing.
what are the mainly BP issues? Full BP and Gliscor/Celebi pass.
forgetting about full BP, we can see the main difference between the above-mentioned mons in just one move, as someone already said: TAUNT.
I don't really know if there's the case to do a blanket BP + boost ban here or just BP + taunt (is Gliscor still an issue even without taunt?) or a Gliscor+BP (can Gligar do the same job? Can every other subpar choice be as effective as Gliscor is? Do they worth the slot as Gliscor does?). Surely Celebi statpasser is not one of the main mons of this metagame as it was in Adv so a likely BP + boost ban won't drastically ruin the staple metagame even there is not the need to cut off all its use just because Gliscor is an issue.
in shorts: Gliscor pass is more an issue than Celebi's, and every other passer seems not working as well as it, so it seems that fixing the solely gliscorpass stuff would be better.
BW:
this gen is way far too much different from previous. Power creep extremely increased and now it's definitely more difficult to deal even with certain single mons or playstyles (how many team can't deal with all weather/dragons/reuniclus/Volcarona/BP/gengar/tailwind off/TR off/etc all together? Not even considering differences in weather(less) HO/bulkoff/balance/semistall/fullstall)
There is not enough space for every playstyle to deal with BP even tho slow-roll strats like full BP or screens + BP need too much turns to work so phazers or good offensive priority users (ES Nite) could work. Sometimes they can't do nothing at all anyway, just think about magic bounce users or faster pass strats like Smashpass or also Quiverpass.
Unlike previous gens, the issue here seems to actually be BP itself because once you get rid of smashpass there will be quiverpass or just tg+twind/trickroom pass or other kind of bs well supported by screen, memento and speed control moves) and for this reason I believe we can think about a BP + boost ban here. "Wait but Celebipass.." chill dudes because in BW there are already too much things to think about it and I think that sole statpass absence can be seen as a "one less problem" in the tide of things we have to think about when teambuilding.
in shorts: some new features, added to power creep increase, made BP an as niche as dangerous playstyle that you can't deal with in most of cases without losing anything else more useful for more used stuff that could let you lose. Also the sole statpass became a niche playstyle that can be """sacrificed""" in order to avoid an useless whirlpool of bans like "first smashpass then quiver then that other etc" while the sensitive problem is not what baton pass but the batonpassing itself, so we can think about a BP + boost blanket ban.
ORAS
basically the same as BW, with even more features to make BP dangerous (Scolipede and geomancy e.g.) and many more mons (including megas) to make matchup issue even more terrible: not coincidentally, the people awakening on the BP issue started here. BP became so dangerous that it just needed ONE single passer to make stored-espeon still viable, other than all these sort of quickpasses. I strongly support a blanket BP + boost ban here because even stuff like Celebipass on certain threats can be terrifying for several kinds of teams which could lose to something else more diffused just to put stuff to not lose to BP. We have to consider also that BP strategy became stronger and with many more ways to prevent usual ways of threatening (like phazing etc).
in shorts: oras is a "worse" bw for what concerns BP issues so I support a blanket BP + boost ban.
The whole issue should be solved asap foe tours' sake
Despite this question, I personally feel that we can't generalize the bpass issue across generations. The point is different in Adv than ORAS/BW as example while DPP looks like in a middle way.
Unlike the OP said, I wanna see the issue from a point of view regarding a likely BP + boost because I believe this is the best solution to get rid of the issue as Tennisace said. A lot of people would disagree but, as also McMeghan said, every other different way to solve this problem seemd not working enough, and this was ok since BP issue only regarded non-tournaments games for the majority of cases because even if BP strategies always looked awfully cheap, people didn't use them in tours for several reasons like matchup issues (this applies mainly for 3-4 gen where magic bounce wasn't a thing), fear of the hax (the only safe way to beat this strategy together with that horrible and uncommon move which is Haze) and mostly sense of "sport" because, as you can see reading comments of almost every battle involving BP, user who runs BP strat was usually considered as a dick.
Things changed (see McM references), and so it should change also the way to deal with this problem.
I state that I won't focus on full BP chains because they can all be settled down with BP clause (we might allow 2 users instead of just 1 for what regards gen 3 -and maybe 4-, while in gen 2 I would like to keep things as they currently are)
So, I would like to start with ADV while it feels like the "common sense of playerbase" don't see BP itself as an issue but just in really few cases:
- the evil drum pass (smeargle)
- perish trap pass (umbreon + lax/cune + Magne to trap skarm and deal with other common phazers as zap/cune/swamp)
Adv phazers are quite common since they are one of the most used ways to deal with ddancers like mence/tar (swamp/skarm) or cm stuff (zapdos/suicune) so bpass seems not that evil (just raikou could be a threat but dugtrio destroys its dreams). A BP + boost ban here should compromise other solid and stable sets like Celebi's, which is one of the most used and effective mon of the tier (this is really important), definitely not broken (annoying tho) and with a lot of ways to play around it.
In shorts: every team of every playstyle shouldn't have issues with BP because the metagame's general perspective allows to play around it without giving an entire slot (or just a single move) "just to deal with bpass".
The problem here is definitely not BP but smeargle drumpassing (and also umbreon trap passing but w/e) so a complex ban would be acceptable.
DPP:
Huge differences with Adv. Now scarf users can revengekill statup mons so offensive teams don't need necessarily a phazer and also some kind of balances don't have to "force" one in them. Number of mons is raised so teambuilding issue inevitably raised, despite a good number of bans which appeased the "power creep" issue. In all of this, BP issue finds more difficulties to have a full slot dedicated for, but generically phazers are quite common (skarmory swamp hippo etc). Note that some kind of teams really find hard to deal with BP now so the matchup discrepancy became more a thing.
what are the mainly BP issues? Full BP and Gliscor/Celebi pass.
forgetting about full BP, we can see the main difference between the above-mentioned mons in just one move, as someone already said: TAUNT.
I don't really know if there's the case to do a blanket BP + boost ban here or just BP + taunt (is Gliscor still an issue even without taunt?) or a Gliscor+BP (can Gligar do the same job? Can every other subpar choice be as effective as Gliscor is? Do they worth the slot as Gliscor does?). Surely Celebi statpasser is not one of the main mons of this metagame as it was in Adv so a likely BP + boost ban won't drastically ruin the staple metagame even there is not the need to cut off all its use just because Gliscor is an issue.
in shorts: Gliscor pass is more an issue than Celebi's, and every other passer seems not working as well as it, so it seems that fixing the solely gliscorpass stuff would be better.
BW:
this gen is way far too much different from previous. Power creep extremely increased and now it's definitely more difficult to deal even with certain single mons or playstyles (how many team can't deal with all weather/dragons/reuniclus/Volcarona/BP/gengar/tailwind off/TR off/etc all together? Not even considering differences in weather(less) HO/bulkoff/balance/semistall/fullstall)
There is not enough space for every playstyle to deal with BP even tho slow-roll strats like full BP or screens + BP need too much turns to work so phazers or good offensive priority users (ES Nite) could work. Sometimes they can't do nothing at all anyway, just think about magic bounce users or faster pass strats like Smashpass or also Quiverpass.
Unlike previous gens, the issue here seems to actually be BP itself because once you get rid of smashpass there will be quiverpass or just tg+twind/trickroom pass or other kind of bs well supported by screen, memento and speed control moves) and for this reason I believe we can think about a BP + boost ban here. "Wait but Celebipass.." chill dudes because in BW there are already too much things to think about it and I think that sole statpass absence can be seen as a "one less problem" in the tide of things we have to think about when teambuilding.
in shorts: some new features, added to power creep increase, made BP an as niche as dangerous playstyle that you can't deal with in most of cases without losing anything else more useful for more used stuff that could let you lose. Also the sole statpass became a niche playstyle that can be """sacrificed""" in order to avoid an useless whirlpool of bans like "first smashpass then quiver then that other etc" while the sensitive problem is not what baton pass but the batonpassing itself, so we can think about a BP + boost blanket ban.
ORAS
basically the same as BW, with even more features to make BP dangerous (Scolipede and geomancy e.g.) and many more mons (including megas) to make matchup issue even more terrible: not coincidentally, the people awakening on the BP issue started here. BP became so dangerous that it just needed ONE single passer to make stored-espeon still viable, other than all these sort of quickpasses. I strongly support a blanket BP + boost ban here because even stuff like Celebipass on certain threats can be terrifying for several kinds of teams which could lose to something else more diffused just to put stuff to not lose to BP. We have to consider also that BP strategy became stronger and with many more ways to prevent usual ways of threatening (like phazing etc).
in shorts: oras is a "worse" bw for what concerns BP issues so I support a blanket BP + boost ban.
The whole issue should be solved asap foe tours' sake
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Just ban "Baton Pass move + Speed boost" to apply for all-gens
The speed boost is the main problem when using Baton Pass, because BP is far from being broken or uncompetitive when is used alone.
The speed boost is the main problem when using Baton Pass, because BP is far from being broken or uncompetitive when is used alone.
jpw234
Catastrophic Event Specialist
I will limit myself to just ORAS OU since that's what I have the most experience with:
Any sort of complex ban of Baton Pass in ORAS would be the wrong thing to do given the current limitation of BP on only one Pokemon per team. I'm going to concede the initial argument that GeoPass/Scolipass are broken (which is a separate discussion, I think they aren't, but it's clear to me that most believe they are), but there is no case for speed-passing or multiple-boost-passing being broken in ORAS. Venomoth is not broken, SD/Agility Scizor is not broken, GliscorPass is not broken. This is especially apparent when in ORAS, where BP is limited to one Pokemon per team. The major broken element of BP in full-BP teams of past gens (and earlier XY) is the ability to transfer accumulated boosts to the best Pokemon for any given matchup, which is incredibly threatening. Current single-mon BP teams have no such flexibility, they basically just emulate the process of setting up a sweeper (a lot of setup mons would be very threatening with the amount of support GeoPass teams give). Any brokenness that is identified rests in the set-up Pokemon, not the move Baton Pass. Smeargle and Scolipede may be broken, but their strength in ORAS does not implicate the move Baton Pass.
Any sort of complex ban of Baton Pass in ORAS would be the wrong thing to do given the current limitation of BP on only one Pokemon per team. I'm going to concede the initial argument that GeoPass/Scolipass are broken (which is a separate discussion, I think they aren't, but it's clear to me that most believe they are), but there is no case for speed-passing or multiple-boost-passing being broken in ORAS. Venomoth is not broken, SD/Agility Scizor is not broken, GliscorPass is not broken. This is especially apparent when in ORAS, where BP is limited to one Pokemon per team. The major broken element of BP in full-BP teams of past gens (and earlier XY) is the ability to transfer accumulated boosts to the best Pokemon for any given matchup, which is incredibly threatening. Current single-mon BP teams have no such flexibility, they basically just emulate the process of setting up a sweeper (a lot of setup mons would be very threatening with the amount of support GeoPass teams give). Any brokenness that is identified rests in the set-up Pokemon, not the move Baton Pass. Smeargle and Scolipede may be broken, but their strength in ORAS does not implicate the move Baton Pass.
Thats very intuitive.
All broken Baton Pass teams uses Speed boost (abilities, items or moves) as MUST to make sucessful the estrategy:
Full Baton Pass (harder to success)
Gliscor Pass (unviable)
Full Baton Pass (harder to success)
SmashPass (unviable)
Full Baton Pass (harder to success)
SmashPass (unviable)
GeoPass (unviable)
Baton Pass alone is balanced or Celebi Nasty Plot Pass (as example) so I disagree about banning Baton Pass as whole thing or banning Baton Pass move + any stat boost. Just reasoning on the real problem.
Just talking about ADV in this post.
I agree with the DrumPass ban. The team in question and other DrumPass variants only lose to a select few scenarios - Haze (which has poor distribution - Vap, Arti, Weez, all of which are uncommon, and all of which would rather have a different moveset), surprise RestTalk (e.g. Metagross), and surprise Lum Berry (e.g. TTar). You can also play around the suicide shuffling lead with something like Hypnosis or Taunt Gengar (but in reality if you see a Zapdos lead, you won't automatically think of DrumPass and play accordingly against it until you've seen Sub and Roar). Even then, something like that won't work if the BP player isn't stupid. The vast majority of the time, you can do nothing to stop the onslaught at all. You can't just 'be mindful' or 'fucking fix your team'. It takes the skill out of the game. If you're playing DrumPass and you're not completely incompetent, i.e, you know the speed tiers and the sequence of moves to do, and what moves the opposing mons run and as such who to pass to, you will win more often than not, whether you're McMeghan or xXG0dK1ller2003Xx. To me, that's an uncompetitive and broken strategy.
The complex ban is absolutely the right way to go about it. The only argument against it is 'it's a complex ban' which isn't valid. Banning Smeargle is a terrible idea, you lose out on the perfectly competitive Suicide Spikes set - needless additional damage. On a side note, Suicide Spikes actually still gets ninja nerfed a tiny bit by the DrumPass ban, as you now know 100% that the Smear is spiking (or passing a Spider Web). I think that's unavoidable though.
As for the Full BP ban, I'm on the fence. It's not as prevalent as DrumPass. It's certainly an 'uncompetitive' strategy in that it takes skill out of the equation, but I wouldn't call it broken. There's some very strong teams that run full BP or something akin to it (e.g. something with a dedicated reciever), but they're all beatable for the majority of teams. If I were to choose a ban to do, I'd favour the second proposal over the first if you can implement it, as the first has a small amount of additional damage associated with it in terms of teambuilding constraints.
I'm aware the first part of my post is worded to sound like it's out of frustration, but it really isn't, I'm being objective.
I agree with the DrumPass ban. The team in question and other DrumPass variants only lose to a select few scenarios - Haze (which has poor distribution - Vap, Arti, Weez, all of which are uncommon, and all of which would rather have a different moveset), surprise RestTalk (e.g. Metagross), and surprise Lum Berry (e.g. TTar). You can also play around the suicide shuffling lead with something like Hypnosis or Taunt Gengar (but in reality if you see a Zapdos lead, you won't automatically think of DrumPass and play accordingly against it until you've seen Sub and Roar). Even then, something like that won't work if the BP player isn't stupid. The vast majority of the time, you can do nothing to stop the onslaught at all. You can't just 'be mindful' or 'fucking fix your team'. It takes the skill out of the game. If you're playing DrumPass and you're not completely incompetent, i.e, you know the speed tiers and the sequence of moves to do, and what moves the opposing mons run and as such who to pass to, you will win more often than not, whether you're McMeghan or xXG0dK1ller2003Xx. To me, that's an uncompetitive and broken strategy.
The complex ban is absolutely the right way to go about it. The only argument against it is 'it's a complex ban' which isn't valid. Banning Smeargle is a terrible idea, you lose out on the perfectly competitive Suicide Spikes set - needless additional damage. On a side note, Suicide Spikes actually still gets ninja nerfed a tiny bit by the DrumPass ban, as you now know 100% that the Smear is spiking (or passing a Spider Web). I think that's unavoidable though.
As for the Full BP ban, I'm on the fence. It's not as prevalent as DrumPass. It's certainly an 'uncompetitive' strategy in that it takes skill out of the equation, but I wouldn't call it broken. There's some very strong teams that run full BP or something akin to it (e.g. something with a dedicated reciever), but they're all beatable for the majority of teams. If I were to choose a ban to do, I'd favour the second proposal over the first if you can implement it, as the first has a small amount of additional damage associated with it in terms of teambuilding constraints.
I'm aware the first part of my post is worded to sound like it's out of frustration, but it really isn't, I'm being objective.