Banning philosophy revisited a.k.a. return of the revenge

I honestly never thought I'd make a thread like this. Mostly, this is because I've believed that it would be fruitless. However, I feel that people are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the banning process for one reason or another. Most of it, I think, is because the banning process is very inconsistent and open to power shifts, compromises, and the whims of whoever happens to be in charge. The banning process does not seem to be as set in stone as many in the upper ranks would have us believe.

The situation that I'm seeing is that there are, roughly speaking, two opposites in conflict with each other. One side calls for consistency and simplicity in the ruleset, with strict adherence to game mechanics; this view won out in the past by fiat from Philip7086 in the wake of a discussion on regulating critical hits. The other side calls for engineering the ruleset until there's a better sense (even if it's slight) that the resulting game is a strategy game that rewards team building and "battle sense" (e.g. making the right calls). Each side fancies itself the pragmatic, common-sense view and condemns the other as hopelessly idealistic, masochistic, hypocritical, and irrational. Individuals who I've otherwise come to know as reasonable come to silly blows with each other, not accepting the fact that it is simply a fundamental disagreement.

The reason I am posting about this here is that I wanted maximum exposure and potential for discussion. I think that the competitive community as a whole deserves to have a say in this, especially since I have no intention at present to get any kind of binding agreement out of this. This is just for the sake of discussion. I firmly believe that discussion and experimentation for their own sake are valuable, even if they don't lead to any tangible revelation (example: BW Suspect Test Round 1). There's also no point in denying that I have put myself on one of these "sides", largely because of the attitudes I've carried over from other competitive communities. This video is pretty representative of my view on luck-based elements of competitive games. At the very least, though, I can understand where the other side is coming from, and I'm not going to pretend that there is some kind of logical proof that exonerates me and condemns everyone who disagrees.

There are some questions that I'd like to ask to both sides of the fence. I think it would be interesting to see the disagreements sprouting out from within each side. After all, like the U.S. political parties, it's not like these groups consist of people who think exactly alike or even agree all that often. I would also like to think that I can trust DST at this point to be able to hold an intelligent discussion, going by some of what I've read in DST and the DST mods' insistence that the quality of discussion has improved since the suspect testing era.

I apologize that this post is so long. I wish there were a really clean way to split this into seven or eight threads...

Consistency/simplicity/adherence:

-> What do you think about battle-behaviour clauses (e.g. Sleep Clause, maybe Freeze Clause), complex bans, and bans of elements other than Pokémon?

Sleep Clause is one of the rules that I think is a long-standing compromise brought about by the excessive difficulty in implementing it in a way that satisfies everyone. Sometimes I have to wonder whether it's even worth discussing. Maybe sleep-inducing moves should just be banned altogether (excluding Relic Song). I just think it's bizarre that we ban entire Pokémon on the premise that banning them in parts somehow would be a headache, and yet we put up with the headache that's right in front of our faces.

Concerning the other bans, I would think that this side would mostly prefer Pokémon bans, at least in this generation with "Team Preview". Simply put, as soon as you initiate a battle, you know without even doing anything whether your opponent is not respecting a Pokémon ban. However, bans of other elements and complex bans would presumably come into play if it means avoiding a significant number of Pokémon bans. How do we even know this, though? And what about previous generations, where only a designated lead is shown off the bat?

-> There's a limited amount of time to contemplate and question aspects of the ruleset. What is most important to scrutinize? How do we even determine this?

This is probably the biggest sticking point in many of the tiering considerations that have come up. The tiering systems we have been using seem to impose a certain risk factor in any modification to a rule. It's as if we can't go back if we mess this up (and this is true quite often). It seems to me that a tiering system based on ideals directly agreed upon democratically would be superior to the current system, which is based on specific rule modifications and results in the same philosophical arguments over and over again. Such a system would, unlike specific rules, be able to be carried over into other metagames/generations, largely eliminating the constant time pinch that we feel when tiering.

-> What roles do/should glitches play in competitive Pokémon?

This is where I think a lot of controversy will be stirred up. Technically, the rules you see in any tournament OP or other designated webpage are not complete. Secretly, we have rules against the mimic/transform/rage glitch, the acid rain glitch in Platinum/HeartGold/SoulSilver, and possibly others. The problem? They're glitches that potentially have a great impact on the game. However, I think that, in the name of consistency and simplicity, the status of some element of the game as a "glitch" should have no bearing on whether it's excluded from play.

The first issue with banning glitches is that we have no universal way of telling what the intent of the developers was. It's true that the glitches mentioned above are very likely to have been unintended, and it's easy to see what probably was intended to happen there. But what about the Sheer Force Life Orb glitch? I bet some of you didn't even know that that wasn't intended. Word of God had to put that question to rest. (Actually, Word of God isn't even always reliable; Square once claimed that the Vanish + Doom tactic in Final Fantasy VI was completely intended, only to make it stop working in the GBA port.) Game Freak probably screwed up in ways we haven't even imagined yet, or at least are only really known by meticulous sim developers like aeo. If we can't decide the borderline cases, what justification do we have to judge the "obvious" ones?

The other issue is that glitches can alter the game so completely and unavoidably that it's hard to tell whether the effect is positive or negative. Take Final Fantasy I, for example. If everything worked as intended, magic would be a lot stronger (and Black Mage would not be outclassed by Red Mage), physical attacks would be weaker in the endgame for not critting so much, etc. Namely, it would be a completely different game, to the extent where we'd know that it's more class-balanced than it's supposed to be, but otherwise we would have no idea of if it would be "better".

Engineering proponents:

-> What is your opinion on adhering to game mechanics?

The other side, I think, is pretty much unanimously for adhering to game mechanics. I suppose what I'm asking here is how far we're willing to go to engineer the game that we're playing. Should we engineer the game as-is, or should the game itself be subject to modification? Note that whatever you answer here will have a profound impact on what happens below.

-> How do we ensure that we give consistent treatment to all aspects of the game? Does it even matter?

A good chunk of the current ruleset has been grandfathered from past generations. Additionally, there are a lot of other rules that we could have had if certain events had played out differently. For example, I sometimes see people complaining about the removal of Freeze Clause, asking who in their right mind would allow the game to freeze more than one Pokémon. The thing is, critical hits have a nearly identical impact on this metagame and probably the last three generations of metagames as well. Both freeze and crits were very, very different in RBY. Crits were a controllable factor in that it depended on base Speed, and they were pretty crucial for landing KOs, while freeze was practically a death sentence, nearly equivalent to OHKO moves.

Had RBY run under different mechanics, we may well have had a Critical Hit Clause where you could only be critted once, or a ban on crits altogether, while freeze would have been an accepted part of the game. I think it almost certain that this Critical Hit Clause would have persisted throughout the five generations; people would be glad it was in place, shuddering in horror at the thought of being screwed over by two (or more!!!) critical hits. In fact, there would probably be a lot of verbal battles in PR about whether to make the CHC adhere to actual mechanics, and how to do so... just like Sleep Clause.

The ruleset as it stands now is steeped in history. It is the result of a truckload of outdated reasoning, resulting in confirmation bias and inconsistent treatment of the various effects in the game. Should we really just accept this state of affairs?

-> How do we ensure that the ruleset is independent of hypothetical small changes to gameplay? Does it even matter?

I've heard it said that certain things have a "right" to work. These things include 100% accurate moves and revenge killing a sweeper. I'll address the former here. Imagine for a moment that every move has a chance to miss. Even the most accurate moves like Ice Beam have 99% accuracy. The game is now so slightly different, barely anyone would notice a difference between this game and the IRL one. A miss is an amusing anomaly; maybe it would cost a game in a tournament or something. But suddenly, moves no longer have a magical "right" to work guaranteed. I'd wager that evasion abilities like Sand Veil, and even evasion moves, might be accepted a lot more because, after all, every move has a chance to miss, anyway.

The reasoning behind this analogy is twofold. For one thing, RBY actually does work like this. Every move has at least 1/256 probability of missing. For another thing, simulators have tried excluding the OHKO and Evasion Clauses, and the resulting metagames have been virtually identical. Removing the Freeze Clause has also had a negligible impact on the metagame. "Rights" that we apparently hold so dear can be so easily revoked, and yet still result in pretty much the same game. So do they really matter that much?

-> How do we even know if we're actually improving the game? What do "fun" and "skill-based" mean, anyway?

People love to say that they know what makes Pokémon fun. And perhaps they do know better than most other people. The problem is, "fun" is subjective, and more than that, the metagame is so intricate that even if you know more than other people, you really don't know a whole lot. I personally think we still know very little about the game we're playing. A lot of this has to do with lingering biases (especially confirmation bias from winning so much) and misconceptions. Even some of the best players seem to have little clue even as to how to EV their Pokémon, at least in cases where it could get really complicated.

We try to claim that we're just trying to make the game depend less on luck, and making it more likely for players to be rewarded for good plays. The fact is, though, every single move hinges on luck. Pokémon is not chess; it is more like poker. Imagine the frustration of a pro poker player who made all the right reads and all the right moves, and yet still lost because his awesome hand was slightly worse than the opponent's. Quite frankly, I think that it's fruitless to try to eliminate every luck factor, being in agreement with the video I linked earlier.

I think complex bans are the worst thing to be introduced. All or nothing.

"Why?" Simplicity. Consistency.

Simply put, if what Sand Veil is the only thing holding Garchomp back from being OU then why not just ban Sand Veil Garchomp and allow Rough Skin Garchomp. Or in another scenario, why not allow level 37 Groudon into OU if it is not overwhelming? If Lucario becomes over-centralizing then dock him 20 levels. Following the complex banning logic there is no reason for these Pokemon to not be included into OU.


The system should be...
If it blatantly breaks the game its out. (Acid Rain)
If it is overwhelming centralizing AND requires unrealistic checks it's out. (Palkia is Uber for a reason)
If it is centralizing but has a realistic number of checks then it remains.

My argument for simplicity. Any time something is banned, it should be in the simplest possible terms. "Darkrai is banned." "Moody is banned." From last gen, "Soul Dew is banned." And, if it was ever shown that it was inherently overpowered, "Stealth Rock is banned." This keeps us from entering murky territory where it's impossible to settle on proper bans. For example, what set of moves need to be banned on Kyogre to make it OU-viable? The speed and simplicity of the banning process are as important if not more so than how effective the ban is. The Drizzle+Swift Swim ban was an exception because it was heavily backed up in how it improved the game by allowing several Pokemon and playstyles to remain around. Everything else should be a simple "list of banned things" that doesn't take long to memorize or review.

Game mechanics are off-limits. If anyone wants to program their own game, they can go ahead and do so. As-is, the only thing that I can see being worth changing is actual bugs in the game's code, like Acid Rain.

I've heard it said that certain things have a "right" to work. These things include 100% accurate moves and revenge killing a sweeper. I'll address the former here. Imagine for a moment that every move has a chance to miss. Even the most accurate moves like Ice Beam have 99% accuracy. The game is now so slightly different, barely anyone would notice a difference between this game and the IRL one. A miss is an amusing anomaly; maybe it would cost a game in a tournament or something. But suddenly, moves no longer have a magical "right" to work guaranteed. I'd wager that evasion abilities like Sand Veil, and even evasion moves, might be accepted a lot more because, after all, every move has a chance to miss, anyway.

Click to expand...

This is a very interesting point. It really does come down to the psychology behind it. When we expect certain things, we rely on them, so if they don't get carried through it has a much higher chance of making us angry. Versus if we hope something will happen. Anyway it's late and I've been cramming some my psych final so I'll get to this more tomorrow. Seriously awesome post.

Also to Stagnant:

I think complex bans are the worst thing to be introduced. All or nothing.

Click to expand...

Why though?

Also to Acritter:

You must realize that your argument doesn't hold up, you're fine with Drizzle+Swift Swim because it was backed? So if allowing Darkrai without Dark Void was backed would you be alright with it? How is that any different from changing Game Mechanics.

Now I'm not saying I disagreed with Aldaron's Proposal (it def made the game more fun, but fun is subjective) but I'm saying its not really different from changing any over 'rules'.

Feel like this should be read.

Strait up bans on broken things only for me. Doesn't matter if they are luck based, if they are not broken, then don't ban them.

IMO, I would like to play the game as it was intended to be designed. A ruleset designed around that plays what it is supposed to play like according to GF and leaves out all of the uncanny quirks and glitches. Imagine it like RBY vs RBY Stadium. Although RBY was the original game, GF intended it play out what it was like in Stadium. In a similar fashion, if GF releases a game with something such as 4th gen Acid Rain, we should play the game as it was originally meant to play as (i.e. something stadium like).

IMO stay away from complex bans. However the whole SS+Drizzles fiasco shows that sometimes complex bans are necessary to keep the largest amount of appropriate strategies and options available.

I agree with acritter. It´s better to keep it simple because otherwise we will end up banning just some sets of pokemons that are broken. For example what if i want to use choice specs Garchomp in OU when the other sets are banned and so on. My point is complex bans would be too hard to implement and while indeed some of the propositions would be good, others would be a monumental failure and a waste of time and energy

I’m a generally more open person and as such I don't believe in straight up rules for things because I find them more problematic then even the most bureaucratic systems. I do acknowledge some possible over exaggerations in complex teiring and banning, such as tiering a pokemon for each ability, which is ridiculous. Take everything in moderation and consider everything I say. For example I am for the individual testing of all the swift swimmers + drizzle rather than a broad clause. If possible and not absurb, I see no reason why not to play with complex clauses.

I do not agree with drastically altering game mechanics though, play the game as it can be played for real, with the rules we make up. But of course take some measure to be realistic for competitive battling, such as timers and stopping you from breaking the sleep clause.

Glitches are a bit weird, I say treat them as you would any pokemon / move / item, allow us to use it since it is there in the actual game, but if it screws it up to much, ban it.

Just posting because I noted there was some questioning on Sleep Clause in the OP. I would keep Sleep Clause as it is. It is one of the few examples of both 'sides' (as defined in the OP) actually compromising, and there's a reason for that. No sleep clause makes Pokemon like Max Sp/Def Breloom with a Choice Scarf way too powerful, as a scarf on base 70 speed with a neutrality or resistance to common priority moves could easily shut down more than half a team if not the entire team all together. We'd all be reduced to carrying things like Poison Heal Gliscor or ResTalk Gyara or anything else immune to status. Banning Sleep, on the other hand, makes Pokemon far less viable. Breloom's success isn't due to Spore or SubPunch alone, it's due to it having both, and can either bluff the opposite set or actually run both in one set. That unpredictability is what makes it so dangerous. If there was no spore, you'd easily see the SubPunch coming, and frankly it'd be too obvious that using Breloom wouldn't be nearly as effective as it is now. Other Sleep users would also lose one of their most potent moves, and some set up sweepers, who require that one turn of set up, wouldn't have the time to boost. I say keep Sleep Clause as it is.

As for complex bans, I don't like Aldaron's proposal. Frankly, Rain HO shouldn't need more than 8 turns of rain to break through anything not named stall anyways, so the fact that Drizzle provides extra turns after that really shouldn't matter anyways. About the only advantage it gave was to save the one turn of setting up Rain Dance, and that's not enough to justify a complex ban.
Personally I would've left both Drizzle and Swift Swim available. Sure, it was a dangerous strategy, but it wasn't really that much better than any other Hyper Offense ever made. Still, at least we proved that we haven't gone and complex banned everything yet. Blaziken was banned as a whole and Moody was implemented as a clause that removed the ability from all levels of play (which was fair since that ability could be abused to the point of being ridiculously luck based). As far as I'm concerned, those two bans share one thing: they took out what was breaking the game entirely. Either that meant putting it in a metagame where they weren't broken (Blaziken) or just taking it out entirely if such a metagame wasnt available (Moody). I can live with Aldaron's Proposal as a once off complex ban, but that's as far as it goes for me.

From now on I think we should just stick to simple bans. Either get rid of it or keep it. Banning parts of it makes no sense, and also makes whatever Pokemon that is left far less usable (Blaziken without Speed Boost is useless, Octillery without Moody is useless in OU, even Ninetales wouldn't be used by anyone in OU without Drought). Banning a Pokemon and banning parts of it would have the same effect on the OU tier: that Pokemon wouldn't be seen again. Either it's not allowed or it's just not viable. No matter what happens, that Pokemon is gone. There's no need for a complex ban because it's just a more complex way of accomplishing the same thing a simple ban would.

That said, if there's one thing I would like, it would be that the suspect testing process returned. I trust the council, but not as much as I trust the old system. Plus, at least that system managed to make me believe I had a say in things (which, being th crap battler I am, I didn't). The council just makes me feel a bit left out. That's probably a bit personal, but it would be a better system for me. Obviously, though, in a perfect world we'd make a new systems that even better, but what can you do?

I guess to sum it all up, what's been going on here seems fine on a general scale. Some minor nitpicks here and there, but who cares? It's good enough, and I'll find a way to smash you with a Kingdra some other time.

-> What do you think about battle-behaviour clauses (e.g. Sleep Clause, maybe Freeze Clause), complex bans, and bans of elements other than Pokémon?

Click to expand...

I dislike complex bans as a whole, that said, there ARE times we need to resort to extreme measures in order to ensure an enjoyable metagame for everyone. The classic Swift Swim / Drizzle ban is one such example, and I think that many of us can agree that it made the metagame a lot more enjoyable to play. Of course, we could have just banned Politoed, and while some people still think Rain is broken, allowing Drizzle in OU has increased the number of teamstyles in the tier. For example, Rain Stall, Rain Balance, Rain Offence. I don't want to turn this point into a rain discussion but I do want to make the point that in this case, something HAD to be done to stabilise the metagame and a complex ban did the job. I draw the line however, when we ban say, Speed Boost on Blaziken so that it can be UU or whatever. Bans such as this I feel are a waste of time, and id rather not consider banning abilities (bar moody). UU I think is having the same problem with SV Gligar, I don't play UU so I won't spend too much time on this in case I offend someone or make a stupid point but id follow the Garchomp example and ban gligar.

That said, I really don't want proper "ban rules". Nintendo is pretty flexible in what they can do, and having iron clad rules set in stone really hurt the banning process. For example look at the old and outdated "Characteristics of an Uber" which people still bring up as an example of something being uber. People constantly argue that because a pokemon has no counters, its uber. I remember having a discussion on PO with a group of users about this, and the community weighing in on a post Nelson-X made about declaring Landorus uber since it had "no counters". Therefore, I don't want use to make rules such as "Complex ban is o.k in this case, but not o.k in this instance", instead I would much rather use intelligent discussion and reasoning if a case requires a complex ban or if another method is possible, or is required.

-> What roles do/should glitches play in competitive Pokémon?

Don't really have much to say on this but I don't really like glitchs as a whole. Acid Rain and stuff should not be allowed in the metagame, and its clearly a glitch. Sheer Force, I don't know the backstory on that and Nintendos position so I won't comment on it.

-> How do we even know if we're actually improving the game? What do "fun" and "skill-based" mean, anyway?

To be honest, we don't know if we are actually improving the game. However, I think we can agree, that the metagame HAS gotten better than it was before some of the bans. For example, Banning Darkrai, Swift Swim, Blaziken, Shaymin S were all healthy for the metagame (Thunderus and Excadrill too I guess) and while some of us hate Volt-Turn, the fact of the matter is that (I feel) the Metagame is better that it was. It might not be currently ideal, but it has improved to some degree.

In regards to the second part of your question...

According to the dictionary this is what I get

Skill: special ability in a task, sport, etc., esp ability acquired by training
Fun: A source of enjoyment, amusement, or pleasure.

Therefore, a skill based Metagame requires people to actually USE skill, battle more, get experience etc etc to increase there skill level. Moody, required no skill, anyone with a basic understanding of pokemon mechanics could chuck in 6 Moody pokemon, and defeat a person who had played pokemon for 2 years and had a much higher skill level. This destroyed the metagame since matches turned into a coin flip. Critical hits, I feel, are different since its difficult to manipulate them, affect both players when laddering, and yea, I don't want to get into discussion of a no hax clause.

Basically, we aim for a metagame where skill, usually, determines the winner. Hax teams buck the trend but skill can grant you victory against them and yea, we aim for a skill based Metagame. Sure, there might be battles where someone loses cos they got haxed, but there are always minor problems, always tiny statistics. As a whole, the metagame we strive for is built around skill that determines a winner.

Fun is difficult because its subjective, many people have different perspectives of fun. I don't actually like "fun" being used in a discussion about banning in pokemon since we don't ban if something is not fun. We ban if something is broken, if it over centralises the metagame, if it limits metagame diversity, fun, I feel, is a term we throw around loosely as a blanket description of why something was banned. We did not ban Excadrill cos he made the metagame "not fun", heck, I had fun screwing up the ladder with my Excadrill Gravity team, more fun than iv had in pokemon in ages. We banned Excadrill cos it was broken, and if you want more reasons, then go look at the megathread lol.

I think my post got a little disjointed toward the end its its tl;dr but its roughly, my opinion on this.

Joeyboy said:

This is a very interesting point. It really does come down to the psychology behind it. When we expect certain things, we rely on them, so if they don't get carried through it has a much higher chance of making us angry. Versus if we hope something will happen. Anyway it's late and I've been cramming some my psych final so I'll get to this more tomorrow. Seriously awesome post.

Also to Stagnant:


Why though?

Also to Acritter:

You must realize that your argument doesn't hold up, you're fine with Drizzle+Swift Swim because it was backed? So if allowing Darkrai without Dark Void was backed would you be alright with it? How is that any different from changing Game Mechanics.

Now I'm not saying I disagreed with Aldaron's Proposal (it def made the game more fun, but fun is subjective) but I'm saying its not really different from changing any over 'rules'.

Feel like this should be read.

Click to expand...

Drizzle+Swift Swim was a problem that couldn't be properly solved by a normal ban. You must remember the debate between banning Drizzle, Politoed, Swift Swim, or simply all the OU Swift Swimmers. Every ban would result in the removal of either a large set of team strategies from OU or a large set of clearly non-broken Pokemon from OU (SWIFT SWIM SURSKIT FOR UBERS). Unlike banning a single broken Pokemon, ability, or item, all of which have been done before, this was not something that could be done cleanly and without severe collateral damage. In the case of the Drizzle+Swift Swim ban, it was not any of the members which was broken, but simply the interaction. Contrast this with the bans to Blaziken, Thundurus, and Excadrill. All three featured on weather teams (okay, not Blaziken so much), and all three were clearly the broken cog. Of course Thundurus would not be Uber without Rain support, and Excadrill without Sand. But with Drizzle+Swift Swim, it was several equally powerful abusers and an enabler that fit on several other types of team without being broken. In this situation, the cleanest ban was to ban the interaction. There has never been a situation like that before, and unless we ever get a situation like it again, a complex ban should never be considered. If another situation shows up, it will be easy to draw parallels to the prior case and once again make the cleanest possible ban. Until then, it should never be emulated. The Drizzle+Swift Swim ban is the exception that proves the rule, and nothing else.

I think things like sleep clause and freeze clause are intuitive regulations- they keep the power of sleep moves such that they don't centralize the game around fast sleepers, but they don't ban a player from using sleep inducing moves. It is obvious that if sleep moves were unlimited then that would add a luck element to the game as speed ties and sleep turn-counts would play a major factor in the outcome of games. So in addition to preventing over-centralization, limiting sleep moves also takes some implied luck out of the game.


I even support complex bans if they make sense. Swift-swim +Drizzle was overpowered, it didn't take skill out of the game or add luck to the game, but it did centralize the metagame in such a way that the only viable strategies were weather based. The game became weather wars and that meant that team match-up became much more important than skill. Matches were not decided by in-game plays, rather the game was lost before any turns had been played.

What I don't support are power creep bans. A power creep ban would be the banning of the current strongest sweeper, that is the sweeper that gives stall teams the most trouble. If we banned Terrakion or Dragonite right now, that would be a power creep ban, because there are pokemon that can give stall just as much trouble as Dragonite or Terrakion (Infernape, Salamence, Latios, Kingdra...) yet these pokemon are singled out and banned because they are the most efficient (they are threatening in the most contexts). When you ban one of these there is an immediate replacement. Looking back, I think the Deoxys-S ban was partially a power creep ban, and partly a ban due to over-centralization. The Salamence Latias, and Garchomp bans in Generation 4 were perhaps the clearest examples of what I would call power creep bans. A power creep ban maybe necessary if a sweeper over-centralizes the metagame, but most often they merely cause a new sweeper to gain popularity. I would argue that Garchomp, Thundurus, and Excadrill were all necessary power creep bans because in addition to being major threats they also had unique circumstances that made them tricky for a team to deal with.


Just my thoughts.

The only requirements I need for a ban are whether it improves the metagame and whether it is not too complex for an ordinary person to understand.

As most people here have said, as a Community complex bans should be avoide unless absolutely necessary as banning sand veil for example would result in the banning of sandslash... I am also of the opinion that bans should have rock solid reasoning and a vast amount of evidence to support them. For exmple thunderus was banned for its speed and power, it was nigh imposible to outspeed it because excadrill made scarfers unviable; since the banning of thunderus and excadrill two potent scarfers have come into the frey terakion and landourus, both of these could handle thunderus just fine; as such i belive thunderus should be tested in a OU where scarfs are viable. There are many more examples i could list but they are all alowed in DW so i would suggest playing there and then re-thinking if said pokemon are actually broken.
Thank you for reading

I'd just like to add something in here, maybe to clarify my thoughts on complex bans. I don't like them very much, but i'm not against them entirely either. I see three distinct scenarios and would apply complex bans in one but not the others.

1) An Ability/Move/something-possessed-by-multiple-pokemon is deemed to be way too powerful or otherwise unhealthy for the metagame, and all pokemon with that ability are ridiculously powerful with it. Fine, complex ban/create a clause to remove the ability/move/whatever but leave the pokemon intact (unless the pokemon are broken even without the ability/move, in which case see category 3). Examples: Swift Swim, Moody

2) An Ability/Move/something-possessed-by-multiple-pokemon is deemed to be way too powerful or otherwise unhealthy for the metagame, but only one pokemon is broken with it. Fine, ban that pokemon in its entirety, leave everyone else untouched with access to the ability/move/whatever. Examples: Speed Boost (Banned Blaziken, left Ninjask untouched)

3) A pokemon is deemed too powerful due to some combination of factors, including but not limited to movepool, stats and ability. Fine, ban that pokemon in its entirety, and leave everyone else where they were before. Examples: Banned Garchomp and Excadrill


Notice that things like Sand Veil/Snow Cloak were left out of the examples section. That's because pokemon that have been banned with Sand Veil are..well, it's only Garchomp so far, and that was banned due to a large number of things, not just the ability. As of right now, i'm not sure if Sand Veil falls into the first or second categories (if it deserves to be banned at all, which i don't yet believe to be the case), as only Gliscor really springs to mind, and even that can run Poison Heal to be more annoying.

I also deliberately said "Swift Swim" and not "Drizzle + Swift Swim", because even though it was Drizzle which finally pushed the Swift Swimmers over the line in many players' eyes, it was the Swift Swim ability itself which was shared across multiple pokemon, and which made the pokemon broken within the current meta. In this case, Drizzle is taken as part of the meta because it is not spread across multiple pokemon, and in and of itself cannot be blamed for making things broken. Drizzle is thus an environmental factor within the metagame, and Swift Swim is the culprit. To use an analogy, if a car(pokemon) crashes into a building (Drizzle), it's not the fault of the building, it's the fact of whatever was making the car go out of control in the first place, i.e. the driver (Swift Swim).

That basically sums up how i deal with each 'suspect'. Each category is relatively easy to define and a 'suspect' can be easily placed into any category. If it's not in category 1 and not in category 2, then it's a combination of factors and thus in category 3. Simple as that.

*Note: I'm not saying these are rules or any sort of law, nor am i saying that Smogon should adopt this reasoning. These are just my thought processes on the subject.

First of all, capefeather, this thread is great. You bring up a ton of important points that really need to be discussed out in the open by the community. I do not agree with all your personal opinions, but I am 100% behind the fact that this discussion is necessary. Anyways, before I go on:

capefeather]I apologize that this post is so long.[/QUOTE] You ain't seen nothing yet. But yeah said:

-> What do you think about battle-behaviour clauses (e.g. Sleep Clause, maybe Freeze Clause), complex bans, and bans of elements other than Pokémon?

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Ok, so, clauses and bans. Yes, I think clauses and bans are sometimes necessary. But I don't think anyone is stupid enough not to realize how completely subjective they are. We like to claim that out bans fix things that are broken, but what the hell does that even mean? All we are really doing is taking things that we don't like playing with and eliminating them. It's as simple as that. But, that doesn't mean we should just be able to ban whatever we feel. We need some sort of rule, some kind of standard, or else we will suddenly start having things banned whenever someone important gets pissed off.

It is for this very reason that I think simple, single item bans are the single best way to go about things. When it comes to items and moves, this is fairly easy. Unless we for some reason banned a move like Transform, nothing would change other than the elimination of the element that we disliked. No Pokemon become unusable, and so we achieve our goal without any collateral damage. Sure, sometimes a Pokemon might be gimped enough by a ban that they can no longer compete on the level they used to, but that is perfectly fine. Some Pokemon never were able to compete on the top level, and no other Pokemon has the right to be able to compete there. To give an example of what I am trying to say, if for some reason Spore were to be banned, Breloom would certainly drop out of OU. And some people would see this and cry foul say that we are unfairly gimping Breloom, and that a change or implementation of a sleep clause would fix the problem without removing what makes Breloom good. To these people though, I point out Parasect. The lowly Parasect. It was never OU. It was never good. And with this hypothetical ban, it lost just as much as Breloom did. Why does Breloom magically deserve to be OU, but not Parasect? And, I believe this to be a solid enough argument that I am fine with using it to justify any bans based on moves or items.

Additionally, I believe this can be used to support bannings of Pokemon themselves. If an individual Pokemon has been shown to be "broken" when no individual item or move is it carries is "broken" in and of itself, then I believe that the same logic can be used to ban the Pokemon as a whole. To use a similar example (cause everyone loves Breloom), lets say that it was determined that while Spore itself was in no way a Broken move, Breloom, maybe partially because of it, is itself "broken." If that is the case, then we should ban Breloom. We should not create a clause to cripple Spore if only one user is broken because of it, and we should not create a complex ban to save Breloom by banning a combination. Just as no Pokemon deserves to be OU, no Pokemon deserves not to be uber. While I believe that this kind of reasoning still exists in the Smogon community, I feel that the ban of Blaziken as a whole was a great step in the right direction. A Pokemon is the sum of its parts. We should no be banning parts if it is the whole that is the problem.

I think the same logic needs to be applied to Abilities. To put is simply, abilities are just a part of a Pokemon. If a Pokemon is "broken" because of its ability, then it is broken. We shouldn't ban an ability on a Pokemon, cause that is once again operating with the assumption that that Pokemon deserves not to be banned. The only situation where ability bans should be allowed at all is if the ability is determined to be broken on a fundamental level, and any Pokemon who has it, no matter how pathetic, is broken because of it. While I can't say I agree with the Moody ban, I do believe that if it is indeed broken, then what was done was indeed the best way to go about things.

Now, it might seem to you right now that I have been supporting all the kinds of bans we have so far, but that is not true. As I have been trying to say, bans should be limited to simple things that clearly and simply remove all that is "broken" and nothing more. As such, I am vehemently against the current Drizzle + Swift Swim ban and anything else like it. And my reasoning for this is no different that what I have already presented. The only reason for this ban over individual bans of Swift Swimmers is based on the flawed concept that certain Pokemon deserve to be in certain tiers. People try to argue that guys like Kingdra are only broken because of Swift Swim, but to them I say, is not Kingdra just the sum of its parts? If it is "broken" because of anything, is it not "broken"? Usually the response though is that it is not Kingdra that is "broken", but Swift Swim, and to that I say, if Swift Swim is "broken", doesn't that mean Luvdisc is "broken"? If Swift Swim does not break Luvdisc, then clearly it is not "broken". Clearly, it is the sum of Swift Swim, stats, typing and movepool that make Kingdra "broken" and not Luvdisc. And there is no reason any Pokemon should not be uber if it is "broken". Kingdra deserves to be not uber no more than anyone else.

The only real other argument I see in favor of bans like this is that they reduce the number of things banned. Because of the aforementioned Drizzle + Swift Swim ban, many Pokemon, such as Kingdra and friends, have escaped the ban hammer. But really, what is this doing besides showing favoritism and a sense that some Pokemon should be in certain tiers? I mean, sure no one is banned, but Pokemon like Floatzel and Armaldo who could very well have been OU see no usage what so ever. That is not better, that is just different. All it is is inconsistency in policy based on favoritism, and such favoritism has no place in a competitive game such as this.

Finally though, lets move on to other clauses. Most clauses I don't think are so bad. Some clauses, such as the sleep clause, has in fact even been introduced into official Pokemon games, and as such we have in game precedent for it. Additionally, while I may not agree on the specifics, clauses such as the Evasion clause and OHKO clause are made in such a way as to ban only specific individual things as a whole. And, as long as clauses continue to follow this example, they are perfectly fine by me.

-> There's a limited amount of time to contemplate and question aspects of the ruleset. What is most important to scrutinize? How do we even determine this?

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The biggest problem I see here is that this is even a concern at all. In the end, what is really most important: getting it right or getting it done fast? I have argued and all ways will argue for the former. Sure, things change, and not everything can be done easily, but I would rather take the time to get it right and have a few months with an awesome game than a few years with a mediocre one. I think the easiest way to fix things is actually not choosing what is most important and doing it first, but going through and making sure we are only doing one thing at a time. Every change or ban that we make can have a massive impact on every facet of the game. And a single change can turn the next big bad "broken" mon into just another one of the pack, or vice versa. As such, any time we ban more than one thing at a given time we are not doing our best to balance the game. Maybe a ban of thing A will stop thing B from being broken. Now I'm not advocating unbanning things every time a new ban is made. Our goal is not to make "broken" things not broke. However, I believe that if we can always choose to only ban the single most "broken" thing, we can get a better understanding of how it effected the game, and thus be even more knowledgeable when it comes to determining if future changes are necessary.

Basically, what I am trying to say is that there is no one thing that is more important to look at than others. We can't determine it, and we shouldn't have to. All that there is are things that are more important at the given time. And we should take those things, one at a time, in order of importance, and analyze them. Yes, this takes time, but by being thorough and not being hasty, we will eventually end up with a much better game than we could otherwise achieve.

-> What roles do/should glitches play in competitive Pokémon?

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And now for this big one. Glitches will always be a tough one to deal with. As you very clearly pointed out, it is pretty much impossible to go by developer intent and still be doing things in an objective manner. And, as much as I would like to say that we should just use common sense, I know that that would be being subjective, which I try to keep away from as much as possible. However, that being said, I do feel that there are a few distinctions that can be made between different types of glitches that can help us deal with them.

First of all, in the game of competitive Pokemon, we can easily split glitches into two main categories: glitches that effect battle mechanics, and glitches that effect battle preparation. Now, its true that some might fall slightly in between, but for the most part are only significant one way or the other. To give an example, the Acid Rain glitch would be a glitch that effects battle mechanics by changing the way the competitive battle itself plays, where as the Mimic Glitch would be a battle preparation glitch. Sure, it could be activated in a competitive battle, but the implications of that are minor to the effects it can have during preparation, where it can give a ton of Pokemon access to every move in the game. Because these two categories are so different, I feel that we can have separate ways of dealing with both.

I think that in battle mechanical glitches are the easier case to deal with. As I'm sure we all know, Pokemon is a competitive game. Now the video that you posted in the OP give its take on what that means, but I would argue that it is erroneous in its definition. To put it as simple as possible, Pokemon is competitive because people who play it strive to win, and do everything within their power to get that win. Now you might be wondering what this has to do with the glitches. The answer is that we can determine whether or not to do something about a glitch based on whether or not its inclusion goes against the principle of competitiveness. Or, in short, if a glitch prevents people from winning, then it goes against what we want in a game. Now, note, I did not say it prevents the more skilled player from winning, I simply said it prevents winning from happening, by which I mean, if a glitch makes the game impossible to play, then the glitch should be ignored. This would apply to the aforementioned Acid Rain glitch, as if a Castform is sent out during Acid Rain, the game enters an infinite loop and will never end. For the sake of competitiveness, we should try to eliminate things like this as much as possible. However, when it comes to battle mechanic glitches that do not literally break the game, we should simply leave them alone. Sure, it might not be what the developer intended, but it does not break the game. It is Pokemon as it was made, and thus as it should be played.

Unfortunately, as easy as I tried to make that sound, these glitches also have one major problem when it comes to fixing them. Wi-Fi play. While sim players can simply play a game where gamebreaking glitches do not exist, in game players cannot. In such a situation it is a lot harder to determine what to do. As previously stated, allowing the glitch goes against the games competitive spirit, but disallowing it creates a disjoint in the community. Should we instead ban Castform, the Pokemon that breaks the game under the glitch to keep the community united, or should we have the Wi-Fi side use one solution and the sim use another. Its really hard to say, and I'll be honest and tell you that I really don't have any idea which is better. However, I feel it is clearly better to remove the gamebreaking effects of a glitch in some way then to let the game be hurt because of it.

Now, while the way to solve mechanical glitches may be difficult, I would like to believe that it is fairly easy to determine which are game-breaking and which should be left alone. However, when it comes to battle preparation glitches, the same thing cannot be said. To be honest here, this one really just comes down to what the community wants. We may not be able to figure out the intent behind the programing, but we do have the game code itself. We know, without a doubt what moves, abilities and stats a Pokemon naturally has, and all the ways that a Pokemon can get these. And yet, sometimes a glitch will let us get around this hard coded data. While we have definite knowledge off of which bans on glitches can easily be made, we do not have any definitive reasoning to go one way or another. In such a situation it comes down to simply determining which game the players want to play. I know I for one prefer a game with out glitches like this, where the discrete, hard coded data is followed. However, I know that may not be the case throughout the entire community. But I truly feel that there is no right or wrong answer to this case. If we want to continue to ban them out of tradition, then that is fine. There is really no difinitive reasoning to go one way or the other.

-> What is your opinion on adhering to game mechanics?

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Man, another big one. Now, honestly, I feel that this kind of discussion often gets confused with normal banning, especially when it comes to glitches, like mentioned above. When it comes to game mechanics, I personally feel that, unless a broken game mechanic breaks the game and renders it unplayable (as mentioned previously), all in game mechanics should be adhered to 100%. Restricting players is a completely different issue from this. We can ban glitches and Pokemon and the like all we want. That is not changing the game itself, only how we play it. But when we start discussing things like altering critical hits or the like, then we are stepping over a line. People come to Smogon to play Pokemon, and Pokemon is a well defined game with set rules made and determined by Game Freak. Smogon may set limitations on how we play, but the game itself remains unchanged. And, as far as I am concerned, that is how it should always be. As soon as we start changing the mechanics, we are no longer playing Pokemon.

Now, as I mentioned, I do make exceptions for removing glitches that render the game unplayable, but that is only because, while playing Pokemon is what we are all here to do, playing a game close to Pokemon that actually works is better than playing something that doesn't work at all. Outside of that though, what should and should not be in the game is not for us to decide.

-> How do we ensure that we give consistent treatment to all aspects of the game? Does it even matter?

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And, following what I said before, I think it is incredibly important that we give consistent treatment to all aspects of the game. I mean, why are some things banned outright when there is not even mutual agreement on it being a problem, where as other things that are arguably worse are not banned at all? Its because we are horrible when it comes to being consistent. Changes between generations are quite possibly the best example of this, as you pointed out in the OP. Take the evasion clause for example. Evasion has been around since gen one, when this clause was first created. Ever since it has been an accepted part of the game. But as each new generation has come around, we have never really stepped back and took a look at whether or not that ban actually makes sense anymore. In fact, in the current generation we have even added things to the evasion clause ban, things which are arguably outclassed, simply because they are evasion related.

And yet, despite the fact that we have no idea if it is even "broken" we keep it banned any ways. Yet at the same time, there are Pokemon that people will argue back and forth about that are never even put to a test. Anyone who can do some basic statistical analysis could tell you that evasion is a vastly inferior strategy to those that are commonplace in the metagame today, and yet we keep it banned for what reason? Tradition? Maybe. And there are worse reasons to ban things than that. But by doing that we show that we are not going to be consistent with our policies. And while that may not seem horrible to some people at the very least it is not good publicity for Smogon. If we truly want to be the premier online competitive Pokemon community, then are rules need to be consistent and based on clear cut policies.

Maybe it is too late for this in generation five, but I really believe that the only way to achieve a metagame based purely on the facts of the game without any inconsistency is to start each new generation without any bans or clauses, and then ban things and add clauses one by one, following predetermined consistent procedures, until we have a game that we can enjoy. Simply doing things because we are use to them is not a good excuse for anything. It is just being lazy, and is not something Smogon wants to be known for.

-> How do we ensure that the ruleset is independent of hypothetical small changes to gameplay? Does it even matter?

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Ok, so to be completely honest, I'm not sure exactly what you are asking with this one. All changes are important and deserve to be treated as such. However, it seems to me that you were saying that small things that can effect the game in minor infrequent ways are not really that important in the long run. And when people get used to these things being in certain places, but not others, small changes to how they work will seem a lot bigger than if it was never as it was to begin with. I agree completely with everything you said, but I'm not exactly sure what to say to this question itself. Ideally our rules should be good enough so that minor changes and fluctuation in gameplay or even the metagame itself would not have any important effect on how things funtion. However, I'm not sure it really matters. If changes happen and our rules still work well, fantastic. But no matter what those changes are, we should always be questioning and reevaluating our rules. If something is found to no longer apply, then it should not matter if we change it. The most important thing is that our rules work and apply to the game that we currently have, and ideally, lacks any effects on things not important to the modern game.

-> How do we even know if we're actually improving the game? What do "fun" and "skill-based" mean, anyway?

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And finally, we get to my favorite topic. Fun and Skill. Lets all be honest here, when it gets right down to it, everything we do here is about fun. We try to mask it saying it is about skill or luck or competitiveness or balance, but what is really the point behind any of those. It is having fun. As I said near the beginning, all bans are are taking things we don't like and getting rid of them. Nothing more. Nothing less. We can try and mask it however we want, but the point is, behind everything, we would not be banning things if we didn't think the game would become more fun because of if.

But if behind everything is fun, how do we determine what is the best way to have fun? Well, we can't. Fun is about the most subjective thing you could possibly imagine, and trying to build a metagame with fun as its primary goal, all you will do is upset people. So we create ideals that a large number of people agree will help lead to fun. While the entire community might not agree that this leads to fun, we make it so that they cannot argue that it leads to this ideal behind which we are masking out personal idea of fun.

And, what is the most popular of these masks? Skill. Unfortunately, it is also one of the least understood masks that people try to use. One of the most common arguments you will hear involving skill is that we need to remove luck based elements to make skill more valuable. And yet the vast majority of the people claiming this cannot come up with a reason why removing luck emphasizes skill. They just claim that it does. Now, I have said this a hundred times before, and I will probably say it a hundred times more, skill and luck are not opposites. Removing one does not the increase reliance on the other. Surely, they do have an effect on one another, but the effect is more of a partnership than an opposition. One with skill analyzes luck, overcomes bad luck, and uses good luck to their advantage. No matter how much luck there is involved, as long as players have to make decisions trying to overcome one another, Pokemon will always be a skill-based game. Messing around with rules and banlists will never change this.

So, if we really want Pokemon to be the most enjoyable game possible, what do we do? If fun is too ambiguous, and the skill mask everyone tries to put over it is a load of bullshit, then what are we supposed to do? That, my friends, is the real question.

As far as I can tell, there is no real way to objectively determine this. After all, it is really just about fun, which is as subjective as it gets. It is for this reason that I always have and always will support a democratic method of determining policies and bans. It might be impossible to objectively determine what we should do, but if that means we have to do it subjectively, then the people playing the game should be the people to choose what they want to play.

Regarding complex bans, why can't it be established that levels and moves (and EV spreads if there are people out there that crazy) are off-limits?

If you eliminate the impending slippery-slope beforehand, then all you have left is the possibility of removing an ability, should it be the defining characteristic of an Uber suspect.

Abilities are easily one of the most influential aspects of a Pokemon's potential, right along with stat spread and typing. Blaziken is the best example of this. In one generation it went from UU to Uber, with the only notable change being Speed Boost (HJK somewhat). Even with the additional checks in the new gen, Jellicent and Chandy for example, it skipped over OU and went straight to Ubers, solely due to Speed Boost.

I don't see why everyone agrees that Blaze Blaziken would be perfectly fine, but somehow that means Confusion Mewtwo and Water Gun Kyogre would have to drop down too.

Regarding glitches:

Generation IV brought us two glitches so major, the game could be altered beyond recognition (relative to past generations) due to one, and would definitely be altered as such due to the other. Acid rain has been talked about a lot, and of course there's the transform/rage/copycat/mimic glitch that I referred to as well. I think what I said about glitches applies to both of these particular glitches. I gave the examples that I did for a reason. I just don't think that we should disallow major game-changing glitches on the premise that they're glitches, and then turn around and be perfectly fine with less major glitches like the Pomeg glitch and Sheer Force Life Orb.

Now, I'm not advocating that Smogon should henceforth restart this generation with "streetmons" or whatever. I'm just saying that competitive Pokémon should perhaps treat glitches the same as any other game mechanics. Rulesets, I think, should specify that certain glitches should not be used in teambuilding, just as Brawl rulesets used to specify that the infinite Dimensional Cape glitch is banned.

Regarding Sleep Clause:

"I think things like sleep clause and freeze clause are intuitive regulations" I think they're intuitive only because they were already there, and were already there because they existed in Stadium 1. Again, depending on history, we may have had a "Critical Hit Clause" or something similar.

Freeze Clause is eliminated from the Smogon rulesets right now, so whatever. Sleep Clause, however, kind of strikes me as similar to the complex bans that people seem to want to avoid. "Sleep is not broken if you can only do it to one Pokémon at a time." It's a headache for sim developers and Wi-Fi players alike (aeo also pretty much "gave up" and is using the conventional Sleep Clause in his sim). A whole network of strategies geared around Sleep Clause prevents people from really accepting any proposed change to it, and then it infringes on the whole "adhere to game mechanics" tenet. It seems like what we're getting to is "adhere to game mechanics, unless it's too hard to implement in the sim to everybody's satisfaction".

Maybe all this is fine. Maybe it opens a whole other can of worms and it's actually not fine.

Ah this. Well any of you who read my arguments in the evasion clause topic (Well really it was SV/SC but it was under the umbrella of evasion clause) will have a decent idea of my view on this. However, I think I'll explain my point of view overall here.

I believe in moderation. Going to either extreme with anything usually just ends up causing trouble. We shouldn't ban nothing, nor should we ban everything we don't like. This is the most general form of my view, but how it plays into each aspect requires some explanation.

When it comes to complex bans for instance, I don't believe we should do a massive number of them or that we should avoid them altogether. There are times when a complex ban avoids serious consequences, such as in the Drizzle + Swift Swim ban. Anyone who makes the stupid slippery slope argument that it'll eventually lead to us to making ultra-specific bans so we can use things like Kyogre in OU is letting their imagination run away with them. We've had SS+Drizzle banned since before I actually started playing Generation V and it's STILL the only complex ban we have so far. The only ones we've even discussed are very similar ones regarding abilities on certain Pokemon or teams, certainly nothing in the range of levels, EVs, movesets etc. On the other hand, I don't think we should make a lot of complex bans, even of the simple ability sort either. At that point we're going too far to try and mold the metagame to our tastes, rather than learning to deal with it as it is. No, I think something like a complex ban should only be implemented in cases where the consequences of only banning one of the elements would far outweigh the consequences of banning the combination. Drizzle + Swift Swim is the perfect example, because banning the elements would've cut a massive amount of variation out of the metagame, but banning Swift Swim and Drizzle combined only cut out the one variation we felt was overpowered. I don't think it would've been right to ban Drizzle and lose all the extra variety to the metagame it provides, and similarly it wouldn't've been right to ban a half dozen Pokemon straight to Ubers.

Which brings me to another point, and probably the only part where my opinion differs from Jas'; I don't agree with his reasoning that because no Pokemon has the right to not be banned that that means we shouldn't try to avoid banning Pokemon when possible. I believe that the best metagame is a diverse metagame, and I want to have as many viable Pokemon as possible available for use in my metagame, and I think most people would agree. Now, this doesn't mean we go to extreme lengths to keep one Pokemon from being banned. For example, we didn't make exceptions for Excadrill or Blaziken, even though it was their ability that made them broken. We banned the Pokemon as a whole, to keep things simple and to avoid falling into the trap of micromanaging the game. However when you're talking about something like Swift Swim, which breaks a wide variety of Pokemon (but not all that use it), then if you just ban the Pokemon you're cutting a very large chunk of variety out of the game. Banning the ability also prevents us from using some unbroken Pokemon, cutting a large variety of out of the game again. Basically, the issue was the SCALE of it. It's one thing to bend over backwards to keep a single Pokemon OU, it's another to try and save an entire group of Pokemon from suddenly going Uber all at once. It's all about moderation, and deciding as a group where to draw the line.

Now for the big thing that people get up in arms about; Luck elements. My personal view is again one of moderation. There's a point where the luck element becomes overwhelming, and games become more dependant on who is lucky than who is skilled. Things like Moody, Double Team / Minimize, Sleep Moves, etc. can all do this, and as such we've put checks in place to prevent it from happening. We have clauses for all of them, to ensure that it doesn't get out of hand. However, a little luck is not a bad thing, and is inherently a part of Pokemon. We do, as a competitive community, want games to be won by the more skilled player most of the time, so that we actually have a desire to try and improve and better ourselves. Such is the essence of competition. However, luck does not have to be removed completely for this to be true. Smaller luck factors like Critical hits, secondary effects, low accuracy moves, etc. do not inherently make the game less competitive because skill still counts for more than they do. Furthermore they encourage the development different kinds of skills, ones that are often under appreciated by many players of this game, such as risk management, damage control, and focus control. Going to great lengths to remove luck aspects of the game not only encourages micromanaging, but it also detracts from parts of the game that some of us find appealing. Yes, it could mean you lose the big Smogon Tour Final or something, but you know what? That's life. That's Pokemon. Hell, maybe if your risk management skill was better that hax wouldn't've cost you the match. For example, say you lose a match because your wall gets critted from around 2/3s health. You could get mad and blame the game for it, but had you kept your wall healthier (perhaps by healing more often, just an example) you wouldn't've been so vulnerable to that crit. Maybe if you had made your team with more redundant coverage you would not have felt the loss from that crit so much. Of course, maybe you decided it was worth the risk in order to, i dunno, burn his other attacker or something instead of heal. That's risk management in action, and trying to eliminate luck factors eliminates that whole facet of the game.

Also with luck, sometimes you just have to know when it's worth it or not. Like with the Pokemon, it's one thing to ban something like Double Team which everything gets and would greatly increase the luck quotient ("luck quotient" is a term because I said so, shut up D:) of the metagame. This is as opposed to Sand Viel, which has a comparatively very minor impact on the overall luck quotient of the metagame. I personally believe that Sand Viel falls below the line for how much luck is too much luck (others disagree). I do however any thinking along the lines of "any luck is too much luck" is preposterous, because luck is a vital element of this game. You can't just prune it out and somehow leave everything else intact.

Now to the more direct content of the OP.

I don't really fit neatly onto either side; I fit somewhere in the middle. I don't believe that the simplest answer is always the best answer and that consistency trumps all else. I also don't believe that we should engineer every little facet of the game to fit some ideal we have (which remember, we don't all agree on). Rather, what I think we should look at everything at a case by case basis and decide based on the impact each decision would have individually.

So, the questions.

-> What do you think about battle-behaviour clauses (e.g. Sleep Clause, maybe Freeze Clause), complex bans, and bans of elements other than Pokémon?

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Well I've already said my piece of complex bans. The others I'll address now. The clauses as is are OK in my opinion with the exception of Evasion Clause, which I think is too broad due to its age. As I mentioned before, Sleep Clause is great because it still allows the strategy of sleep induction but keeps it in check so the game doesn't centralize around it and become less skill based. If we could just sleep everything then who'd win would be whoever missed the least with their sleep moves and woke up the soonest. Not fun most of us would agree I think. Freeze Clause doesn't really make sense to me because it's not like you can reliably induce freeze anyway. As far as I'm concerned, Freeze is just like another kind of critical hit, and is too minor to be worried about. OHKO clause is a little more shaky, but the diversity it would grant by being unbanned would be minor and the uproar just not worth the trouble. Evasion clause is the one that annoys me though, because people have started applying it to things other than Double Team and Minimize, which were of course the sole cause for the ban back in Generation I due to being the only thing that could affect evasion. Since then new, less powerful and/or less well distributed methods of raising evasion have come into play and just now we've decided to start banning them despite the minor impact they have. What really gets me is that people on both sides want to ban it, the engineers that want a luck free game and the simplicitists that want consistency with the ancient evasion clause. In my opinion, Evasion Clause should just apply to Double Team and Minimize, which are the only evasion aspect that can drastically increase the amount of luck in the game to the point where skill actually starts to matter less. Also, Minimize Blissey f*cking terrifies me :P. You fought that fucker on the battle subway? Yeah, most unfair thing EVAR!

On a related note, I'd just like to quickly voice my opinion on consistency. People seem to forget when making an argument using consistency as a support for it that consistency is meant as a TOOL to make the rules easy to understand, not as some golden standard that cannot be touched. If the inconsistent thing is minor enough that it shouldn't cause undo confusion, or if no one is going to be confused by the inconsistency anyway, then there's no point in being consistent for the sake of being consistent. Especially if we have to sacrifice something more tangible to get to that point. Not to mention that often there are less painful ways to go about being consistency (for example, just renaming the evasion clause to evasion MOVE clause). You don't usually have to ban things just to be consistent.

Anyway, next question.

-> There's a limited amount of time to contemplate and question aspects of the ruleset. What is most important to scrutinize? How do we even determine this?

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I think we should always, ALWAYS take the time to make sure our decision is sound before implementing it. Partially because in this community a decision is almost always permanent (it's basically an unwritten rule) so if we fuck up we're stuck with it. If we just rush rush rush to get a rule in place we risk screwing ourselves over in the long run. Take the time to work it out properly. There are other aspects to the speed of it too. We need to be careful what we chose to look at. We should avoid things that impact the game in a very minor way; usually these just aren't worth the time. Generally, if you find out that something is affecting less than 5% of games and that people aren't being forced to make decisions around the factor in every team they make, then it's not a big enough issue to bother with. Of course this number is up for debate, but there is a point where discussing banning something just becomes silly. Finally, we should allow a little bit of time between each change to the meta before we move onto the next one. This is necessary to ensure the right decisions are made because the arguments made before the change may no longer be relevant after it. I also think that for this reason only one thing should be banned at a time (I think banning both Thundurus and Excadrill at the same time was a mistake for example), so that the effect of each change can be evaluated before we move onto the next step.

-> What roles do/should glitches play in competitive Pokémon?

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Of all my views this is probably the easiest for me to explain :P. My view is that glitches are a part of the game, and should be treated as such. Just because they weren't intended doesn't lessen their competitive potential. As such, glitches should only be banned or removed if they somehow break the metagame, either literally (like acid rain) or figuratively (Rage/mimic glitches). Things like Sheer Force and Life Orb recoil aren't broken in a competitive environment, so I see no reason to fix them.

-> What is your opinion on adhering to game mechanics?

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Hell yes we adhere to them! I want to play competitive Pokemon, not competitive pseudo-Pokemon. If you want to change the base mechanics of the game, make a different metagame and take it there. Don't force them on those of us who want to play Pokemon. Things like balanced hackmons exist for a reason (though of course that doesn't change the mechanics, but it certainly isn't Pokemon as we know it either. It's just an example of how you can take it elsewhere just fine).

-> How do we ensure that we give consistent treatment to all aspects of the game? Does it even matter?

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I'm not exactly sure what you're asking here. At first it seems like you're asking if rules should apply to all the tiers or something, but then you go discussing past generations and I get confused. Basically, I think each metagame should get treated individually in the way that is best suited to that metagame. For example, evasion clause might've fit generation I just fine but things have changed since then, so what worked then doesn't work as smoothly now. Basically, look at everything in sort of a vacuum and try to make sure it applies properly to that particular game / tier / etc. That's the best way to ensure everything gets regulated optimally, in my opinion.

-> How do we ensure that the ruleset is independent of hypothetical small changes to gameplay? Does it even matter?

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Again... huuuuuh? I'm... not sure what you're asking. You already know I think things that have very small impacts should be left as is for the sake of diversity and simplicity, if that's what you're asking. If not... I really don't know what to say because I'm confused.

-> How do we even know if we're actually improving the game? What do "fun" and "skill-based" mean, anyway?

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Ah, this is a bit easier to answer. Basically, I think that trying to come up with a consensus on what "fun" or "improving" mean is fruitless, as both of those are subjective terms. Skill based is a little more defined though. Basically, to me, skill based means that if you are more skilled you will win more often and more reliably than someone who is unskilled. Obviously this doesn't mean "every time" because otherwise no game would be truely "skill based". Even things like Chess wouldn't qualify, as there are things like outside distractions that can break your concentration and stuff, causing you to lose even if you're slightly better than your opponent. Luck can be a part of skill, as I already explained. So, I believe that we should indeed try to ensure the meta remains "skill-based", while maintaining as much diversity as possible. As such, we need to ban some things to keep it skill based, but we should not lower diversity to somehow make it more skill-based unless the thing in question would take the game straight out of skill-based territory (like Moody or Double Team).

Well hopefully that explained my view alright, I'm not sure how well it all came out but it is very clear in my head. Putting these thoughts to words can be a little tricky at times, but I do hope I got my views across properly.

The only thing I really want to say here is that the Acid Rain glitch seems to be a bit overrated. I had a bigass post in PR which I'm going to link here, and my thoughts on the matter are the same. The glitch itself is ridiculous (HOW does Game Freak do this shit in the middle of the generation, seriously), but there's nothing on it that is inherently "broken", "uncompetitive" or jesus christ whatever you guys want to call it. It's also unavoidable on Wi-Fi unlike the Mimic Glitch, and doesn't involve overly pedantic discussions like Sleep Clause (WHAT IF DUGTRIO SWITCHES IN ON SPORE SCARF BRELOOM). It's there, it happens in battle under specific conditions the game can still be played EXCEPT in even more extreme conditions (no one uses Castform/Cherrim just like no one uses Scarf Breloom vs. Dugtrio) and everything can be avoided if both players... know how to play the game and don't want to activate it. And people knowing how to play the game is kind of expected, as we are a competitive Pokémon community.

Of course, we could ban it (and we did!). We could just come out and say "ok no sorry, we aren't willing to deal with this shit" and call it a day; we just can't say "WE'RE DOING THIS FOR THE GREATER GOOD" as if we were saving the whole internet from Cthulhu, because we aren't. Ultimately, we are banning what we feel should not be part of the game. We did that with Evasion, with more than one Sleeping pokémon per team, with almost all 670+ BST pokémon, and with the Mimic Glitch. It's fine. We just have to be coherent and know our reasons for the bannings, instead of trying to save our asses putting the blame on some supposed brokenness we aren't even sure of, or fabricating reasons ten years after the facts happen.


And what's this talk of Word of God about Sheer Force ?__? Someone on Game Freak has said anything about the glitch (because I'm sorry, but that IS a glitch... even though everyone loves it)? I have never heard of such thing.

Jimera0 said:

However when you're talking about something like Swift Swim, which breaks a wide variety of Pokemon (but not all that use it), then if you just ban the Pokemon you're cutting a very large chunk of variety out of the game. Banning the ability also prevents us from using some unbroken Pokemon, cutting a large variety of out of the game again. Basically, the issue was the SCALE of it. It's one thing to bend over backwards to keep a single Pokemon OU, it's another to try and save an entire group of Pokemon from suddenly going Uber all at once. It's all about moderation, and deciding as a group where to draw the line.

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But still. Why? Why not banning the broken Swimmers (which, for 101% certainty, was Kingdra only), but complex banning Drizzle+SwSw instead? I'm sure banning Swift Swim under Drizzle was a MUCH bigger cut on variety than banning only a handful pokémon.

I guess I'll take the opportunity to talk a little about Evasion and Sleep, and touch a little on Moody while I'm at it.

The reason that those are banned is not necessarily because they're overpowered, although an excellent argument can be made for Moody and sleep being too strong. It's because they prevent people from actually playing the game. Picking a super-effective typing to attack with doesn't mean anything if you can't hit the other Pokemon. Switching in a Pokemon that can tank damage like a champ doesn't mean anything if you're asleep. Let's not even speak of Moody, also known as "I sure hope my Protect-Sub spamming works": the ability. They are banned not because they're too strong and will break the game, but because whenever they show up the game suddenly stops being playable. They make player choice entirely irrelevant, and that makes the game not worth playing at all.

This obviously brings up the next question: "What about crits/% chance effects/paralyzing/whatever else?" Well, the first issue with most of those is that it means we have to edit the game, which I'm not a huge fan of, but besides that, it's that these are effects that can be planned for as a possibility rather relied on as a certainty. With Moody and evasion, you're essentially stating "I am putting money on this always working, and if it fails, I lose." With a crit, a % chance effect, or paralysis, you are stating "I am doing this for its ordinary effect, and I have the chance of getting lucky and gaining an advantage over my opponent that way. In addition, if I do this enough, my chances of getting lucky will go up significantly." For example, Scald is a favorite move of bulky Water-types because it is a solid attacking move that has a chance to burn. The bulky Water-type is capable of throwing out enough hits that it is likely to eventually score a burn, turning this into a strategic choice rather than dumb luck. That is the difference between the two.

-> How do we even know if we're actually improving the game? What do "fun" and "skill-based" mean, anyway?

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I've always wondered that myself.

After all this ban happy months, the metagame hasn't got any better, much less more fun. It's the same shit, but with less team building liberty. DP all over again.

I thought we started this generation with no banlist to avoid this fiasco.

Less team building liberty? What are you talking about? On the contrary bans should give you more freedom with team building (for example now you can make your team with no worries about an excadrill sweeping you).

jas61292 is a beautiful person and I agree with his points completely. His points about game mechanics, ruleset, the impact of tradition and the subjective quality of what we're trying to achieve is spot on imo.

I want to touch on something not entirely connected to the principles of banning but which is something of interest (and concern) for me nonetheless - our banning methodology.


I didn't feel particularly comfortable with (in my view) the inconsistent way that bans were being handled. I didn't agree with the SwSw + Drizzle ban and we were assured that it was to be a temporary measure while we came to a more appropriate conclusion. That never materialised of course and now we're still in the situation of Swift Swim Luvdisc being declared 'broken' in OU. I'm not against complex bans in principle, but there must be a more consistent way that it is analysed, introduced and handled. It seemed to me, no offence intended, that the higher powers in the community just wanted to get it over with which doesn't fill the average player with much confidence in the metagame that they're playing in.

In an ideal world the suspect process should be a measurable process, a scientific process. Right now our suspect process is one based on subjective opinion backed sometimes by carefully selected 'facts'. It's pretty much as political as it gets which means we can conceivably see anything being banned as long as public opinion is swayed enough and enough popular support is drummed up (again returning to the example of SwSw Luvdisc being banned from OU amid much popular support, a casualty of what we were lead to believe was good logic and for the greater good of the game).

This also leads to the problem of banning the most powerful Pokemon in a tier only for the second most powerful to become the most powerful and we're back to square one with there suddenly being legitimate popular concern about the power of the new most powerful monster dominating the metagame (the 'slippery slope' argument which I don't think is an unreasonable concern).

In the case of individual Pokemon for example, the most idealistic way would be to have an algorithm to analyse the attacking potential and the defensive potential of a Pokemon and to have the players of a tier set a subjective limit on what they deem to be acceptable. Now anything over that certain limit is banned and the whole process is transparent, measurable but also popular and not subject to the shifts of power and opinion (not until the players of the metagame decide that it's time for a change). But Pokemon has so many variables (eg abilities, movepool, typing that all affect a Pokemon's effectiveness) that this 'algorithm' would be almost impossible to program.

Despite the difficulties in implementing a scientific suspect process, I think we should try to incorporate as much numerical and objective analysis as reasonably possible as early as possible in the suspect process. This allows every suspect to at least be compared and tested to an even standard (in the areas we can make objective analyses) before we enter the process of making subjective judgements. What this method will look like I don't know. Someone probably has a much better understanding of the different tools we may or may not already have to determine sweepiness or bulkiness or supportiveness or whatever to have a better idea than me about what such a process may reasonably incorporate.

The current model of very general guidelines that set out the undesirable qualities or traits of 'broken' things and to subjectively measure what is happening to what is set out is like laws and judges in real life. This system suggests a democracy - ie the suspect testing/voting process we had before. Every player has a say and be allowed to have their opinion swayed just like in a real life democracy and all the advantages and disadvantages that come with it.

I don't know what the solution is. It just seems we're kind of at a state of limbo right now. Not completely a democratic political process, but no sign of a scientific process either. (Stats and figures do often appear in suspect discussions but it is not defined in a methodology and it is up to the poster whether they want to include it in their considerations or not.) Personally I'd like an ideal world and I'd like there to be a purely scientific process of determining things we should ban. I am realistic though and I realise that is impossible (not least because the mere act of banning something is in fact to reach a subjective goal of 'fun' or 'enjoyment'). I guess what I'm trying to say is I would like to see at least some stages of the suspect process be driven by measurable components, the measurable aspect to be intrinsic to the process itself, so that we can have confidence in what we are doing and we can have some sort of a benchmark to fall back on.

It may indeed end up still being flawed, but would it be more flawed than what we have now?

I can't really compete with the length of some statements people have made so far, and I'm really a terrible OU player, but I'll slip in here anyways.

The goal of banning things, be it an ability, move, or pokemon, is to enable more strategies to be used and to promote variety in the metagame. So far, I feel like we've done a good job so far. Thundurus, Excadrill, and Blaziken were all pretty much unstoppable in rain, sandstorm, and sun respectively (even in Ubers, Blaziken can 2HKO physically defensiveGiratina-A in the sun o_O). What I'm worried about are the number of pokemon that are used almost all the time.

In 4th Gen, which I played briefly near the release of B/W in Japan, I really didn't enjoy playing. Every match felt like a Rock-Paper-Scizors game between Tyranitar, Scizor, and Heatran. And if you weren't packing all 3 of them, or reasonable substitutes for one if you didn't feel like including it, you were pretty much screwed. This is an example of unhealthyness in the metagame; when 3 pokemon who counter each other basically become staples on every team just to counter each other.

In 5th gen, where I've played OU and laddered for a bit, I quickly got tired of it and stopped playing it, even leaving Smogon for a few months. The reason? I got tired of fighting the same, copypasted weather teams over and over again. The last straw for me was when I literally saw two identical teams (T-tar/Scizor/Gliscor/Ferrothorn/Jellicent/Excadrill (back during the Excadrill era, obviously)), followed by 3 consecutive games against nearly identical rain teams, with only one pokemon changing in between.

I'll be completely honest. I ragequit Smogon. What was the point of trying to come up with unorthodox sets, sets that were actually fun to play, when everyone recycled the same team and maybe changed one or two pokemon? I was losing games left and right, and I even fell to 860 at one point. I made a few comments on alts on the server about how certain pokemon who I found to be overcentralizing (like Tyranitar, Scizor, and Politoed) should be banned. And I meant it. Finally, I rescued my rating by going into the teambuilder and making the same team that everyone else was using, the same bulky offense sand team, and carried myself up to 1205 with it. But I was miserable. It was no fun to win using the same cookie-cutter sets and moves, and just playing Rock-Paper-Scissors to win. I wanted to enjoy myself while laddering, which is a pretty much impossible task when everyone is using the same team.

When we ban things, the goal should not be to ban things which are "broken" if they are only slightly slow. The goal should be to decentralize the metagame. To make more sets, more team strategies, more pokemon viable. It should not be to ban anything and everything which breaks our precious Ferrocent cores.

With that in mind, we should be suspect testing not the pokemon who are viewed as broken, but the ones who are used the most. These are the ones who are clearly limiting variety; pokemon which are not being used much in OU are not limiting variety as much as the ones who are used all the time. I like the way UU and RU ban, simply because they look at pokemon like Lilligant and Sigilyph in RU's case, who are clearly centralizing in their tiers. Why should OU ban differently when it is clear that UU and RU have many more viable pokemon, a much more enjoyable metagame, and lots of experimentation? OU is currently stagnating, and has been for months, so changes need to be made to encourage variety, whether they come from new dream world releases (uncontrollable), new game mechanics (maybe in Black and White 2), or from bans. Since bans are the only thing we as a community can control, more must be enacted to promote variety.