Clauses in the metagame

Hi, **NOTE: this article I have written does not expressive my actual views: I'm playing devils advocate! :D

As someone who has pretty much seased to play (only for personal time reasons, career etc.) I remember having disscussions back in 386 about the neccessity of clauses. I'm talking:

-Evasion Clause
-Sleep Clause
-OHKO Clause
-Freeze Clause
-Hax Item Clause (not listed on smogon's "Introduction To Competitive Pokemon page, does this still exsist? The pokemon-prescriptivist in me hopes so, but the descriptivist view I'm trying to present in the article hopes not :P!).

Now, whilst Spieces Clause is a no-brainer, the others remain pertinant. Now note, I played a bit of initial D/P metagame, but nothing since Pt. came out and nothing of HG/SS. I started my competitive playing in the oh-so-fun stall enviorment of G/S/C, loved R/S enviroment but 386 is where I really found legs and ran with the game).

Let's theorymon these things up.

Evasion Clause; the treatise appears on this to be to limit the effect that luck has on the metagame. Luck is a slippery slope in pokemon with its CH's and its 10% Freeze IB's etc. I remember Nettbattle being full of Double-Teaming Ninjask's Baton Passing to some sweeper. But, what would actually change in an enviroment where it was allowed? Is it OP in that it would dominate the metagame? My theorymon radar (which of course has no proof behind it) see's it as wave cancellation: the fact its unreliable and flawed would cause it not to be worth it, and therefore leaving a metagame where the option is there but no one would use it. Or the other possibility is that it would gain ultra-specific use.

Sleep Clause: This one is hard to defend (and I dont want to!) but for the purposes of this article... why ban the status effect sleep? Would it be that centralizing? Theorymon suggests a metagame without sleep clause would become one based around a little stat called speed: and who could get it in first. And, it would seem, luck also enters this arguement. When does the pokemon wake up? Next turn? Or 5 turns later? *points to sleep being op in the itial japenese TGC metagame, but then realises this is about the videogames enviroment and no one cares about that tangent, so moves on*.

OHKO Clause: Ahh, the joys of being straight sweeped by fissure whiscash in a wi-fi 3v3 match. Can one argue its 30% accuracy balances its power out? Is a metagame without a OHKO clause suddenly dominated by Quagsire? *I jest*. I read about the metagame become more and more overtly offensive since the semi-balanced range of teams 386 play had... would a removal of OHKO clause be the ultimate hyper-offence? Substitute, I look to you, you beautiful thing.

Freeze Clause: This one appears to be the easiest to argue (thank God, this is a difficult thing to write!) since one is not conciously trying to freeze an opponant. Blizzard raises things to 30%, and Serene Grace is an ability on... an interesting mix of pokemon (granted, I cant remember if any D/P new pokemon have Serene Grace as an option so, cut me slack here if there is). But unlike other status effects theres not a Freeze move. So... its a debate on how accuratly you want to imitate GameFreak's little cartridges. Heal Bell and Aromatherapy anyone?

Hax Item Clause: My quick claw means my curselax strikes first and wins the game for me! +1 Evasion item + sandstorm +1 evasion ability = lots and lots of instant evasion! Can'o'worms indeed. King's Rock Flinch hax... or a way of improving Dunsparce's Headbutts to more extremes of OP?

What I am putting forward here is a perception change of what are actually the raw components of the competitive game we play. Are they antiquated left-overs (carefully hyphonated to avoid confusion) from the old metagames or neccessary boundaries that need to be removed?

My actual opinion of course bias's the arguement toward "we need them". But I hope to provoke thought into: why, and what if they weren't?

What would the game be with 1, if not all, of those clauses removed?

Personally, I think Evasion Clause is a relic of the days when Swift was the only thing that hit through evasion modifiers. Old habits just die hard.

Sleep Clause is the only one of those that I feel is justified in today's metagame (and is still auto-enforced in certain modes of the Stadium-type games, fyi). Stealth Rock is more centralizing and effective than everything else on that list.

Sixfortyfive said:

Personally, I think Evasion Clause is a relic of the days when Swift was the only thing that hit through evasion modifiers. Old habits just die hard.

Sleep Clause is the only one of those that I feel is justified in today's metagame (and is still auto-enforced in certain modes of the Stadium-type games, fyi). Stealth Rock is more centralizing and effective than everything else on that list.

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Wow brilliant, I wasn't expecting such liberal view off the bat. Stealth rock indeed, nullifying Articuno and the lark down to crazy low tiers.

The question is, if these are old left-over relics, is the course of action to remove or just leave as is? The question is, is it "correct" to have these clauses in or not if they don't have overt effect?

Sleep Clause *needs* to be there. Like, I have no idea how to stress how much we NEED sleep clause.

Species changes the way the game is played. What if Mence isn't uber, but having two is? Do we ban the ability to have two mence on a team, or do we ban mence? iirc, japanese rules structure around BST with a few exceptions(Heracross) for species clause, and stuff above a certain BST can't use SD(Garchomp/ Scizor fall here). But I'm not here to argue against their rules, so whatever.

OHKO I support immensely: in DP, everything is so offensive(even stall) to the point that one free turn(given up 70% of the time) is too much to lose. I posted a whole thing in the PR about it(not 100% OHKO Clause) and supporting numbers that showed you get 2-3 kills on average if you are able to spam 8 OHKOs in a row, with not a single PP wasted by Pressure, Substitute, immunities, or an ability.

Evasion seems interesting: I've played a couple of games where Evasion was allowed, and I can say it is quite underwhelming. Worse-case scenario is that more teams run phazers: and if you don't, you usually have a problem with Ninjask regardless.

Blizzard doesn't have a 30% chance to freeze. ._.' It'd be banned because that's almost like a OHKO lol. Seriously, though, Freeze clause isn't necessary but just helps to keep a game hax-free(or at least, moreso, since a freeze can be considered pretty haxy).

"Hax Item Clause"? Never heard of it. Using any of these "hax" items would mean you are inconsistent: why give Infernape a 10% chance to live when you could boost his attack by 1.3 and kill the opponent first? Why have a 12.5% chance of surviving randomly when you could gain 6.25% HP per turn? Stuff like that.

Quick Claw is slightly different, but even then Rhyperior holding it would either lose 6.25% recovery or the desperately needed boosts in attack.

Edit: to answer your questions:

"The question is, if these are old left-over relics, is the course of action to remove or just leave as is?"
-If you looked in the policy review forum, you'd see that there's an entire topic about testing clauses.

"The question is, is it "correct" to have these clauses in or not if they don't have overt effect?"
-I personally believe that if it isn't broken, then there's no reason for banning it. While people have different versions of "broken", we can all pretty much agree that it means you are at a disadvantage for not using it if your opponent does: always.

Firstly: I feel we should get out of the mindset of asking "is something overpowered", and instead ask "is the metagame better with or without it".

Sleep Clause - I think we need this. Without sleep clause, I believe the metagame would become centralised around sleep users and sleep talkers. It doesn't affect the Pokemon used so much since everything learns Sleep Talk, but having to give one move-slot on almost EVERYTHING to the move is unappealing. Having everything asleep and Sleep Talking most of the time would increase the random elements (owing to random move selection), and status other than sleep would drop dramatically.

Hax Item Clause - I can see why people use it. The hax items aren't overpowered, but they increase the randomness, which most people dislike.

Freeze Clause - This cannot be implemented in a manner that both observes cartridge mechanics and is fair.

OHKO Clause - I think allowing OHKO moves might be interesting. Sweeper's aren't going to use them - they have enough power as it is and can't afford to miss. OHKO moves would be used firstly by walls, who can take opposing non-OHKO attacks and strike back, with the added advantage of not caring too much what their opponent switches into, since if the OHKO move hits all non-immunes go down no matter their typing.
Secondly, for similar reasons wall-breakers might use them. It's a great way to get round an otherwise impregnable threat.
The main problem is the high degree of luck, especially if two OHKO users go against each other. For that reason, I think 'standard' should be OHKOes still banned.

Evasion Clause - My main concern is theorymon that Evasion Stall could be very powerful. With access to Evasion, stall teams become even harder to break. Phazing moves have finite accuracy, so after a Pokemon gets in a Double Team or two the opponent can't even rely on forcing them out. But I think it really ought to be tested. I don't think evasion moves are necessarily over-haxy, and do suspect allowing them it could enrich the metagame. We should especially look to Gen 5 - I'm expecting more new offensive threats than new defensive ones, so we may have to drop evasion clause to make stall viable in gen 5.

Articanus said:

"The question is, if these are old left-over relics, is the course of action to remove or just leave as is?"
-If you looked in the policy review forum, you'd see that there's an entire topic about testing clauses.

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And therein lyes the problem of Toby, who not only refers to himself in third person but also doesn't bother to check other threads before blabbering on and waxing poetic.

Sorry, my bad!

Articanus said:

Species changes the way the game is played. What if Mence isn't uber, but having two is? Do we ban the ability to have two mence on a team, or do we ban mence? iirc, japanese rules structure around BST with a few exceptions(Heracross) for species clause, and stuff above a certain BST can't use SD(Garchomp/ Scizor fall here). But I'm not here to argue against their rules, so whatever.

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Not to derail the topic but is there a detailed description of the Japanese meta anywhere? I recall a 'foreign metagame' topic a long time ago but I don't think that went anywhere. :/

On average, the removal of the OHKO clause would not be a bad thing, as OHKO moves are rather unreliable, and it's easier to 3HKO pokemon than use a 30% chance for an OHKO. Not to mention Skarm and Forry have Sturdy. On the other hand, a single hit could take out and important team member and lead to lopsided battles.
I would prefer that OHKO remains, along with species and evasion.

Toby said:

The question is, if these are old left-over relics, is the course of action to remove or just leave as is? The question is, is it "correct" to have these clauses in or not if they don't have overt effect?

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I pretty much think the slate should be wiped clean and most everything should be retested whenever the game receives a major update (such as the jump from one generation to the next). The only things I eye with a "guilty until proven innocent" attitude are 600+ BST legendaries.

The Smogon metagame supposedly bans as few things as possible to maintain a balanced and fun metagame, but I dispute that when some banned aspects of it don't seem to have been tested in ages.

I just doubt that high-risk high-reward evasion-related elements and other stuff would run rampant enough to ruin anything. Luck also dosen't bother me as much as it seems to bother others, though... I cringe whenever I see somebody complain about or apologize for "hax."

cantab said:

Freeze Clause - This cannot be implemented in a manner that both observes cartridge mechanics and is fair.

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Although it's fair to note that it can be implemented in PBR.
But yes, since there is nothing that specifically causes Freeze, and the most used Ice moves all have a small chance to freeze, it's kind of unfair to say you can't use Ice Beam anymore just because you froze one Pokémon. Even if the addition of Flare Blitz as a self-thawer gives a couple more Pokémon a chance to get out of it (but who's using ice attacks on Fire types?)

What I always found really interesting, is that I can remember the old times of GSC (before NetBattle) when OHKO moves were allowed. And that was in the highly defensive metagame of GSC.

I saw things like..

Tauros @Lefties
- Fissure
- Horn Drill
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

Of course, sometimes it swept half a team, but most of the times these things were not actually good. Sometimes you coud come in, curse one or two times and then sweep your opponent's half team.

And now look what happened since then: We got Sturdy in RS (I actually think it was GameFreak's answer to that Tauros, since every physical wall of GSC got it). And we have a much more offensive metagame where basically everything can 2HKO Tauros.

A similar thing happened to evasion clause. I also have a faint memory of an Umbreon passing around some DoubleTeams in GSC. And it was bad. It just let you get ahead in Curses. And since then, we got many abilities helping us against this kind of thing. And we got Aura Sphere. And again the much more offensive metagame where you cannot risk letting your opponent set up on you.

If One-Hit KO was lifted, would people start using Mind Reader/Sheer Cold Articuno or even Spore/Mind Reader/Guillotine Smeargle? (that Smeargle is quite useful when it shows up for use in Sunset Colosseum)

It's exactly the unreliability of the OHKO moves that makes them so annoying. You had that awesome sweep stopped just because a Gliscor with a Choice Scarf somehow hit your two last Pokémon with Fissure and you think: "What the hell?! That thing has 30% of chances to hit each time! How the hell did it hit twice in a row?" Yeah, there's always that stupid 30% chance that can make you lose when you had everything to win. That too much based around luck.

About evasion. I once battled a Double Team Shuckle. That was the worst battle of my life. There was one time I was able to bring it down to around 5%. The next turn my Earthquake missed and he used Rest. All of my Pokémon were eventually killed by Toxic.

Using two Pokémon of the same species is stupid, it too obvious and it doesn't need an argument.

The only clause I don't agree with is the Freeze Clause. It doesn't make any sense. It's just a stat ailment that's almost like Sleep but, unlike the later, can't be voluntarily and reliably induced. So, there's no reason to forbidden more than one freeze. I'm also against it because it's the only clause that can't be applied on Wi-Fi battles (it would make no sense that just because a Gengar in my opponent's team was frozen I wouldn't be able to Ice Beam his Salamence just because it had 10% of chance to freeze). As simulators are supposed to simulate the games, that rule shouldn't be applied.
EDIT: And freeze is not like a OHKO like someone said. It's more like sleep because when frozen, a Pokémon can still thaw out.

PhredLevi said:

If One-Hit KO was lifted, would people start using Mind Reader/Sheer Cold Articuno or even Spore/Mind Reader/Guillotine Smeargle? (that Smeargle is quite useful when it shows up for use in Sunset Colosseum)

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In practice, Mind Reader would function more as a phazing move than anything else imo. The follow-up is also stopped cold by Protect, I think.

Just a quick note; On Pokemon-Online they have freeze clause which doesn't stop you using any ice moves it just stops them from freezing if one of your pokes is already frozen which is a bit handy as I would of had 3 pokes frozen in an earlier battle today.

I think the main issue with OHKOs isn't just the luck factor but the fact that there are almost no safe switch-ins to counter a Pokemon. Latias is a common switch-in for Kyogre and one of the few that can do it repeatedly, it can take any attacks Kyogre throws at it, but when you allow OHKOs, suddenly Latias becomes a less safe switch-in, there is a 30% chance Latias won't survive the switch and suddenly your Kyogre counter is gone. When counters to Pokemon are dead upon switching in, to the Pokemon they are supposed to counter, there are no counters for that Pokemon now, nothing can safely switch-in.

Nekoh said:

Just a quick note; On Pokemon-Online they have freeze clause which doesn't stop you using any ice moves it just stops them from freezing if one of your pokes is already frozen which is a bit handy as I would of had 3 pokes frozen in an earlier battle today.

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Yeah, but you can't do that on the cartridge. The current Sleep Clause we use on Shoddy is broken as well. It comes down to whether or not we want to sacrifice staying true to the cartridge mechanics for a more enjoyable metagame. (I personally think the game is more enjoyable with the flawed Sleep Clause because I think it's stupid for you to have to forfeit because your opponent's Blissey had Serene Grace.)

Nekoh said:

Just a quick note; On Pokemon-Online they have freeze clause which doesn't stop you using any ice moves it just stops them from freezing if one of your pokes is already frozen which is a bit handy as I would of had 3 pokes frozen in an earlier battle today.

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Shoddy does it that way as well, as did netbattle before it. It's not anything new, just a wrong implementation if following cartridge mechanics that should be removed.

The problem with evasion is easy to see when you compare it to accurrancy-lowering attacks. Switching aside, the most important difference and the main reason why it's broken it's because it's here to stay while once you kill the rival pokémon with the latter you are again vulnerable.

It's just a very powerful stall tactic, broken on it's own even before you start to consider the power of baton pass. Almost anything learns double team so it's going to have a huge impact in the metagame.

Consider that the two or three turns you have before getting KOed will get you at least one free turn. Recover in that turn and soon you are indestructible unless the opponent has huge amounts of luck.

Simply, get any wall and get a lot of boosts and you are golden.

Whenever I see these threads I always think about how that in a future gen clauses will be selectable on cartridges and all this controversy will be for not.

Also, I don't see why people don't support Freeze Clause. Pretty much Sleep and Freeze Clause give you a max of two absolutely useless Pokemon per team at any given time. Any more and half your team is unable to do ANYTHING, which isn't fun.

UltiMario said:

Also, I don't see why people don't support Freeze Clause.

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Because it is impossible to reproduce on the DS games.

It's not fun when some random thing sweeps half your team with Fissure. It's not fun when you can't hit with any of your attacks because they've Double Teamed 6 times. It's not fun when all your Pokémon are frozen and asleep and you can't do anything. It's not fun when some lucky critical hit kills your Pokémon after it's got 6 Calm Minds up. Let's add a Critical Hit clause!

The argument I always heard about Evasion Clause was this: the metagame would eventually devolve into Rock Paper Scissors. "Normal" teams like in the metagame of today would lose to evasion-oriented teams; these Double Team abusers would lose to any "accuracy team" packing moves like Swift, Shock Wave, and Magical Leaf just for the purpose of stopping Double Teamers in their tracks; however, the low power of these moves would leave them vulnerable to "normal" teams. You have equal chances of being guaranteed to win, guaranteed to lose, or actually having an even match.

JonTheRed said:

The argument I always heard about Evasion Clause was this: the metagame would eventually devolve into Rock Paper Scissors. "Normal" teams like in the metagame of today would lose to evasion-oriented teams; these Double Team abusers would lose to any "accuracy team" packing moves like Swift, Shock Wave, and Magical Leaf just for the purpose of stopping Double Teamers in their tracks; however, the low power of these moves would leave them vulnerable to "normal" teams. You have equal chances of being guaranteed to win, guaranteed to lose, or actually having an even match.

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I disagree. Since Whirlwind and Roar have 100 accuracy, and Haze has -- accuracy, I could see Hazing become more prominent in the metagame as an alternative to the "potentially risky" PHazing...

Also, as an afterthought...wouldn't removing the OHKO clause make anything with an OHKO a certifiable No Guard Machamp counter?

Myrmidon said:

Also, as an afterthought...wouldn't removing the OHKO clause make anything with an OHKO a certifiable No Guard Machamp counter?

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No guard doesn't affect OHKOs.