Is there any good reason to not finally start testing clauses as planned all along?

This topic will serve to canvass the opinion of those who have changed their opinion on which Clauses (Evasion, OHKO, and Species) we should test if any, now that the time is finally upon us. I have not wavered in my eagerness in seeing whether these clauses are really necessary for competitive pokemon, let alone the possibility that their observation is actually detrimental to it. Aeolus differs, though, citing a "maturity" in assessing the efforts and energy entailed in testing he considers could be idle.

A snippet from our conversation:


[21:09] <Aeolus> i think that we've all grown in our evaluation of ideas since those threads were posted
[21:09] <Aeolus> it would help us determine whether or not to test
[21:09] <Aeolus> which is a pretty big deal
[21:09] <Jumpman16> even if that's true, which i am hesitant to believe, it begins to puzzle me anew that anyone who opposes a plan waits until the last minute

[21:10] <Jumpman16> i mean, it's a pretty big deal to just not test something
[21:10] <Aeolus> these things have been back burnered for years
[21:10] <Aeolus> now that they are relevant again, i'm bringing it up
[21:10] <Aeolus> i think that is totally appropriate
[21:10] <Jumpman16> what do you mean years though
[21:11] <Aeolus> for the duration of the pokemon testing
[21:11] <Jumpman16> we decided months ago that after pokemon come the clauses
[21:11] <Aeolus> the clauses have been back burnered
[21:11] <Aeolus> if i'm being honest, that was the least of my priorities then
[21:11] <Jumpman16> it was the least of all our priorities to actually test them
[21:12] <Jumpman16> but there was very little opposition to actually testing them

[21:12] <Aeolus> and perhaps that is still true
[21:12] <Aeolus> if so, then we'll have no problem
[21:12] <Aeolus> but i really think that people have changed the way they view these tests
[21:12] <Aeolus> i know i have
[21:13] <Aeolus> so i don't see any problem updating ourselves on the public opinion
[21:13] <Aeolus> before we launch headlong into a huge new endeavour that could have a massive impact

[21:13] <Jumpman16> and if that is true
[21:13] <Jumpman16> it cuts to the fabric of what annoys the shit out of me
[21:13] <Jumpman16> as i told you last week
[21:14] <Aeolus> i'm not annoyed by people changing their minds
[21:14] <Jumpman16> there's little i hate more than a last-second derail of fairly laid plans that were put in place very well in advance
[21:14] <Jumpman16> i'm annoyed by people not voicing such change
[21:14] <Aeolus> when circumstances on the ground have changed, it is responsible to adjust
[21:14] <Jumpman16> im not annoyed by people changing their minds either
[21:14] <Aeolus> rather than just pursue plans because they were made in advance
[21:14] <Jumpman16> it's also responsible to broach this subject (i'm not just singling you out) well in advance


So, I'd say "don't let that deter you from posting your opinion if it's changed" if I meant it but I honestly don't really care any more than you have about posting before this prompt! Post whether you still want to test the clauses right now as planned (and which clauses, I don't expect an "all or nothing mentality"), considering we're done tiering pokemon, and if not for a given clause, why.

I was not in PR for the original OoO, but I fully support testing each of the proposed clauses. Allowing Evasion and OHKO may make the game marginally more luck based, but unless the strategies they allow can prove themselves to be broken or otherwise notably harmful to the game I do not think they should remain banned. Species seems more of a philosophical issue than one that can be resolved by a simple "open up a ladder without it and work from there", but an actual test along with a debate does seem like the best approach.

I see no reason not to get started with this. While it is true that there is no currently no excitement or hype over this, mostly because tests of specific Pokemon are still fresh in our minds, I believe that would change once there was an official announcement.

With regard to which of the clauses merit testing, I am definitely in favor of testing OHKO Clause, since OHKOs are limited in scope and seem to be capable of being defended against by reasonable means. While I am not at all pleased by testing the Evasion Clause, I grudgingly accept that it probably isn't quite a significant enough annoyance to be worth arguing over in PR rather than just doing it.

Species Clause is a different story, however. In my limited experience playing without Species Clause (in the Late Night Tournament, and in a few other test battles) I have found that the game becomes reduced to a highly exaggerated dependence on team matchups; it is incredibly difficult for any relatively conventional team to beat 4xKingdra in Rain, so most of the metagame is spent trying to defend against just such strategies. Managing Suspects in a Species Clause-less metagame would be a huge headache in itself--how do you deal with past bans when wholly different Pokemon are broken? Consequently, I oppose testing Species Clause, as I believe it would be an utter waste of time.

OK, here's how I see this.

Fundamental clauses (OHKO, Evasion)

There ought to be certain enforceable (i.e. no crit clause) rules banning elements of the game whose sole purpose is to circumvent skill in favour of luck, rather than merely banning elements that break the game. While both OHKO moves and Evasion moves can be countered, and there are more legitimate ways to use them (e.g. spamming Fissure on a Suicune who can't do anything back to you), the fact remains that the only reason to use them at all (other than a lacking movepool, I suppose) is to gain a lucky break. As it stands, the existence of the clauses seems to stand entirely on their creation by Nintendo, so it would be in our interest to justify employing these clauses in the universe in which they never existed, and a fundamental perspective does just that. Plus, this helps us justify using the clauses in Ubers while allowing banned Pokémon in there.

Fundamental OHKO Clause: A removable element of the game is not allowed if its only possible effect (other than the "null effect" of doing nothing) is to create a situation that is not expected by probability to happen, but would be broken if it was expected to happen.

By threatening a OHKO move, the user is forcing the opponent into a situation not very different from one in which the opponent uses Focus Blast. The difference is that the Focus Blast user has chosen to take the risk of using a 70% accurate move, whereas the OHKO victim is forced into taking the very same risk. All unless the victim is willing to switch in a Sturdy Pokémon just to counter this.

Fundamental Evasion Clause: A removable element of the game is not allowed if its only possible effect (other than the "null effect" of doing nothing) is to force future events to be less certain.

This is kind of the same as the OHKO Clause, except from a more offensive standpoint. The Evasion user is basically making just about every option from the opponent unreliable, other than options specifically made to ignore Evasion.

I'd like to stress that I'm not talking about a tournament battle between two good players, where the use of these moves is probably unreliable, because that's going into whether these moves are broken and I'm explicitly ignoring that aspect of these bans. I'm talking about moves whose only purpose is to make the RNG favour the player who might not deserve it. This is not the same as prediction, where players can at least control the risk factors and choose to defy them. There is no real control in these moves.

In short, let's not test these clauses and instead ban them on principle.

Species Clause

This is a more interesting case because there's nothing (from what I can see) that's fundamentally wrong with having multiples of the same species, as far as competition is concerned. Yes, strange shenanigans are possible in which multiple identical-looking Pokémon are used to confuse the opponent, but in the end this is an aspect of prediction, not luck. You can keep track of remaining HP ratios, possible EV differences, and possible moveset differences.

However, the possible ramifications of allowing multiples of the same species is what I think most people are fearing. The consequences of removing the Species Clause could be huge, even redefining the game into something unfamiliar to the vast majority of players. Should this be a factor in not putting this to the test? Should Species Clause be off in Ubers? These are the questions that I think are the most important.

I'd say test Species Clause. (But now I have no idea how that would work, so I'm going to hold off on this.)

EDIT: After seeing the discussion on #stark about this, I can definitely understand why what I said might not be good enough. When I posted this, I asked myself whether similar instances of luck in any competitive game would be removed if tournament ruleset makers were given the chance. (e.g. If there was an option to remove tripping from Brawl, or crits from this game, would we use it?) From my experiences with the Smash community I'd say that the former would definitely happen. However, the hole in this analogy is that, while crits and tripping will exist unless the player in opposition to them takes measures against them, in the case of OHKO and Evasion the player wanting to use them has to make the decision to put the moves in the 24 moveslots that he/she has. The 24-move limit is a pretty heavy toll on most possible teams as it is, and so a smart player will probably be discouraged from using them. So this may warrant a test of both despite their only purpose being to increase the factor of luck.

However, I think that we still need to have a good idea of what would make these clauses broken. It could well be, of course, that a OHKO move or an Evasion move is just what a certain Pokémon needed to be effective, even to reach broken levels. In this instance, I think that it would be fairer to ban the luck-based element rather than the Pokémon. i.e. If the removal of one of these clauses breaks even a single Pokémon, the clause should be reinstated.

I support the testing of clauses. There are a few clauses that I feel should be tested without question, and a few that I think should not be tested on philosophical grounds (that others are surely welcome to contest). I know the OP mentions only Evasion, OHKO, and Species, but I wanted to weigh in on two more (Freeze, Sleep) with my thoughts on each.

To Test:

• Evasion Clause
• OHKO Clause
• Freeze Clause

I support the testing of these three off the bat. Evasion, OHKO, and Freeze all bring in added layers of "hax" that a lot of players hate in general, but that are fundamental parts of the game, much like secondary effects for attacks and critical hits. All of these would not (presumably) have enormous impacts on the metagame, but might, so a test is warranted in their cases. I think if we're seriously going to test Evasion and OHKO, though, that we really ought to test Freeze as well. Freeze is something that can only, in the 4th generation, be caused by random luck from an assortment of moves. Freeze in general sucks when you get a Pokemon frozen, but so do critical hits. We don't ban two consecutive critical hits, so I genuinely think that we shouldn't ban two consecutive freezes either. I really recommend that we give the Freeze clause a test, at the least, to see if enabling multiple freezes per team actually breaks the metagame or not. (I suspect that it will not)

To Not Test:

• Sleep Clause
• Species Clause

I think we can all mostly agree on Species Clause, but Sleep Clause is something I expect a lot of back-and-forth about. These clauses all have a direct impact on the metagame as we know it. Both of these clauses really hinge on what we, as the community determining the metagame, decide is necessary for a "desirable metagame." Do we want things like Breloom and Roserade to become potential suspects due to their ability to sleep an entire chunk of the metagame? (This would also have ramifications in UU, likely with Venusaur getting banned or something) Should the metagame evolve to have a sleep absorber on every team? Do we want to do this to a metagame we've cultivated for so long? Things like that. I, personally, feel that we shouldn't test the sleep clause because the sleep clause gives us what I feel is the desired metagame. It is a problem, in my opinion, if we were to let sleep run free in the metagame, turning it into something distinctly less-fun and more forced than if we were to leave the Sleep Clause in. Those are my thoughts, anyway.

Anyway, yeah, the Sleep and Freeze Clauses aren't even on the platter, but I wanted to ramble about them for a bit anyway. Feel free to ignore the parts about them if you want, but I really wanted to put my feelings for all of them on the table. I look forward to this testing.

I don't have much of an opinion on what gets tested for single battles, but I thought I'd drop in a bit of advice. If you do test OHKO Clause and Evasion Clause, I recommend either unbanning OHKO moves first or unbanning them both at once for the Suspect environment. OHKOs are one 'answer' to evasion-raising, since their accuracy is constant.

Just my 2¢.

There was a debate on the freeze clause in this thread, and the almost unanimous conclusion (with people such as chaos, Aeolus, Tang, RBG, Hip, and a whole host of other debaters agreeing) was to remove the Freeze Clause. I agree with this conclusion, and do not believe that it can be abused to any real extent or that it needs a test.

My opinion is the same as it was before, which is that the Evasion and OHKO clauses should be tested and the Species clause should not be.

Broken or not, a Species clause-less metagame would be a completely different animal than the one we're currently dealing with. I really cannot express how crazy I think it would be for us to seriously test it, but I also am not even remotely worried that it will actually be taken "seriously" in any way. We'll have a fun little sandbox to play in for a while, but ultimately it'll be disregarded as a pretty significant waste of time.

Now that I think about it, the comparison between Freeze Clause vs Sleep Clause turns out to be a great indicator that OHKO and Evasion may be fine in the metagame. The deal with Sleep is that every competitive Sleep move exists for the sole purpose of inflicting the Sleep status. On the other hand, there is no such move for the Freeze status. i.e. Freeze is always unintentional and accidental.

Man, I'm flip-flopping a lot these days. But I know when I'm beaten by unanimous precedent.

First, freeze clause is currently irrelevant. I have already removed it as a requirement from all official tournaments for GSC/ADV/DPP... so none of you need to waste your breath on that.

Now on to the relevant topics of Evasion, OHKO, and Species clauses...

I vehemently oppose the testing of Evasion and OHKO clauses.

It is my belief that the goal of these suspect tests should be to create the best competitive game possible. I also think that we have a responsibility to give the players of the game some stability in the rules with which they are forced to play.

Evasion and OHKO clauses have been banned for years because they are "strategies" based on luck. Dice rolling. Any OHKO move might KO any pokemon 30% of the time regardless of the opponent's quality team building, expert strategic play, or brilliant prediction. Evasion is the same craps shoot in that its use simply attempts to nullify an opponent's strategic play.

Wholesale Detriment

Please pay very close attention to this part:

There is no way to anticipate how effective either of these strategies might be in an actual game with testing them. This is totally irrelevant. What is certain is that allowing either evasion moves or OHKO moves into the game introduces more luck into the game than was previously admitted. Granted that a competitive game is our goal rather than one that allows the most possible moves created by Nintendo, it seems to me to be nonsense to allow moves with the sole function of making the game more based on luck and therefore essentially less competitive. NOTICE PLEASE that this statement is true regardless of the potential impact or usefulness of either type of move (which could only be determined through testing). Perhaps we'd find the impact to be small overall. In that case only a small number of matches would be overturned by the arbitrary RNG on which the success of evasion/ohko moves depend. Or, perhaps we'd find the impact to be large in which case many matches would have an altered outcome based on the the caprice of the RNG. In either case, whether the impact is small or large, we have found out nothing new. All we've seen is that the game is more influenced by luck that it was before which is obvious from the outset. I propose on purely philosophical grounds that such an effect is undesirable and shouldn't even be considered for a game that is meant to be a competitive endeavor.

Stability

A competitive game is best preserved by maintaining as stable a ruleset as possible. Obviously, this axiom has been largely ignored by the past several iterations of the suspect test process during which we've tried to create the most advantageous ruleset possible... but there's been good reason to do so. However, the question of testing the proposed clauses certainly is a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". At some point, Smogon owes it's users a game that isn't under threat of fundamental change. I think we've finally reached that point. The game functions perfectly well without either evasion moves or OHKO moves. I do no believe that testing moves long since deemed undesirable to satisfy half baked curiosity benefits anyone. It is time to "play the game". In my opinion, the time for testing in the fourth generation is over, and it is now time to "just play the game".

Species Clause

I don't care if we test this or not. I think it is absolute nonsense and will never be changed.. but I don't any argument against it other than the stability thing which you already read about. In general, I'd prefer not to test it... but I'm more willing to accept a test of this than the others which are just fundamentally harmful to the game.

I think there are two groups here:

1. We should only have bans on things that are broken.
2. We should ban things that are only detrimental to the game (evasion and OHKO moves).

I guess there could also be people that think that there are benefits to having evasion and OHKO moves (other than greater variety or whatever) but I don't think I've seen anyone arguing that.

I am in the second group because I think it is more practical. I doubt they are broken, but who cares? I don't think they are improving the game in any way.

Rising_Dusk said:

Evasion, OHKO, and Freeze all bring in added layers of "hax" that a lot of players hate in general, but that are fundamental parts of the game, much like secondary effects for attacks and critical hits. All of these would not (presumably) have enormous impacts on the metagame, but might, so a test is warranted in their cases.

Click to expand...

I do not agree (with the exception of freeze) that they are fundamental parts of the game. They are just types of moves that we can remove to make the game involve less luck.

Just posting to say I completely agree with Aeolus and I think none of the 3 clauses should be removed / tested.

I'm opposed to the testing of Evasion and OHKO clauses. Most top players complain about luck enough that I can't see what competitive benefit adding entirely lucked based moves would bring to the game.

On the other hand Species Clause is something I am interested in testing because unless there is a certain over-centralizing pokemon used I feel like given the diversity of the current dpp metagame it would hinder a player to use two of the same pokemon aside from carefully planned strategies.

I haven't given this idea too much thought but Jirachi might be a potential problem pokemon. As you know, Jirachi has a large number of viable movesets and steel types are very valuable in the current metagame. However, I would like to point out that with the banning of mence this might change again.

I'm fine whether these get tested or not. I don't really see any of them making for a better metagame. I also believe that if they were tested, and the decision ended up "lift them", then they're probably not really breaking the game.

I think I might have been the one to bring up Species Clause to begin with, a long time ago...but right now for me it's more of a "for the hell of it" test, not really something where I think "this clause has been there unjustly! FREE SPECIES!".

These "the only thing OHKO/Evasion moves do is introduce luck into the metagame" arguments are shortsighted bullshit. People need to understand that everything in this game has some non-apparent, widespread impact on the metagame. You can't just disregard that impact in favor of analyzing a move/item/Pokemon based solely on its immediately apparent effect on an individual game. Yes, every time one of these moves is used, the results of following turns become notably less certain. Yes, everyone will bitch and complain about these moves whenever they are used (successfully). This is like 100% irrelevant to the question of whether or not the metagame will actually become more or less competitive with them allowed.

Maybe OHKO moves somehow make Lapras really good, and Lapras becomes kind of annoying, but also supremely balances out the OU metagame. More realistically, maybe multiple, less extreme things happen that still manage to justify a slight increase in the whining and bitching of a community that will whine and bitch no matter what happens anyway. There are endless possible ways in which Evasion/OHKO moves could shape the metagame in either a positive or a negative way, and the only way for us to reliably verify what those are is to allow the moves.

Earthworm said:

I guess there could also be people that think that there are benefits to having evasion and OHKO moves (other than greater variety or whatever) but I don't think I've seen anyone arguing that.

Click to expand...

Hipmonlee has theorized specific potential improvements that Evasion and OHKO moves could have on the metagame, with little to no opposition, in the "We're old enough to not necessarily believe in any old Clause, right?" thread, and probably another thread somewhere that I'm forgetting about. Actually, that thread seemed to end on a rather "pro-test" note with regard to the Evasion and OHKO clauses. Maybe people should read that.

Posting to agree with Aeolus regarding not testing the three clauses.

I'm in agreement with Aeolus regarding the Evasion/OHKO clauses - they may turn out to create a reasonably playable game, but at some point we have to draw the line and say "no we're going to stop testing here for the sake of making the game enjoyable". I don't see the removal of these clauses doing anything other than adding more potential for games to be ruined by luck.

As for species clause, I don't really think there's much point in testing it as it's pretty obvious which way the vote would go.

I agree pretty strongly that now testing actual pokemon is out of the way, it's time to let the metagame settle down instead of finding new things to test and potentially ban/unban. Not only is gen 5 just around the corner, but I honestly can't think of many reasons to continue the testing by branching out into clauses other than "because we can".

Opposition to testing Species clause can be found here.

Regarding OHKO and Evasion clauses: it isn't as simple as "do we test it." If we decide yes, we test it and...then what? The removal of these clauses will have a negative effect the metagame. Period. It may be so small it affects less than 1% of games, but its there nonetheless. And with that we already know the results of the test; why bother going forward with this? Now, if we're going to take a serious approach to this, it is not going to be a question of whether they benefit the game or not like Pokemon suspect testing. What really needs addressed is which of the following is preferred:

A) Keep the clauses because we don't want to hurt the game at all.

B) Test the clauses: if the impact isn't enormous remove them.

There is no middle ground between the two of these.

The issue with option B is that is that we're accepting negative additions to the game because it only affects 1/X battles (only). But if that 1 negative result, an implication of clause removal, can be prevented, why allow it? What makes it acceptable? The reasons I've seen surrounding it are for a "simple ruleset" and/or because they're grandfathered clauses, somehow making them illegitimate. I don't consider either of these arguments valid.

So I'm against testing OHKO/Evasion because it would be testing for testing's sake.

Posting just to confirm that I'm still against testing evasion and OHKO clause. I completely agree with this point made by Aeolus:

Evasion and OHKO clauses have been banned for years because they are "strategies" based on luck. Dice rolling. Any OHKO move might KO any pokemon 30% of the time regardless of the opponent's quality team building, expert strategic play, or brilliant prediction. Evasion is the same craps shoot in that its use simply attempts to nullify an opponent's strategic play.

Click to expand...

I'm about 70-30 in favour of not removing OHKO clause. On one hand, they're luck-based. On the other hand, they're the best counters to Stall teams I can think of, and I hate stall. (Of course, whoever plays Stall will vehemently oppose the removal of OHKO clause.) That's probably not a very good reason to justify the introduction of OHKOs, though.

I'm about 70-30 in favour of removing Evasion clause, though. True, Evasion has been banned since RBY if I recall correctly (definitely since GSC). But it must also be said that in RBY and GSC, there was no move that nullifies the opponent's Evasion increases that didn't depend itself on Evasion (Roar and Whirlwind can fail, and Haze could fail in GSC against a Pokemon with Evasion). Not so in ADV, and to a bigger extent, in DPP. Moves like Odor Sleuth, Miracle Eye, etc. not only render all Evasion attempts useless, but are also 100% accurate no matter the amount of Evasion that the opponent has. Perish Song is 100% accurate no matter the Evasion too. Haze eliminates all stats changes, and, as from DPP, is 100% accurate no matter the Evasion. Etc Etc. So GameFreak DID try and address this problem.

The only problem I see is that it is way too late now for people to test this stuff. People will, understandably, say that they're been accustomed to Evasion clause for way too long now, and introducing it would be like playing an entirely new metagame. It is already too late. If such clauses need to be tested, they need to be tested on a clean slate.

In my opinion, in Generation 5, we need to decide immediately whether to test OHKO and Evasion. If we don't do that, we would (and should) never do it for that generation. Similarly, it is way too late to test them for Gen 4 now.

i agree with aeolus completely, testing evasion or ohko, which only encourage luck and are detrimental to strategy is something i'm not in favor of.

I agree with Aeolus on OHKO and Evasion. It's pretty obvious that both of them add a level of luck to the game that can completely remove better play and judgment from battling situations. If I lose because I set up a CM Cune or something only to get Fissure'd by some random fucking Pokemon you have no idea how pissed I would be.

After thinking about it a bit more, I thought Species Clause should be tested because of the fact that it would only apply to 5-6 Pokemon and would make the dual species user more susceptible to losing to a singular threat (for example using 3 Jirachi means you basically lose to any Heatran). However, ultimately I think it shouldn't be tested. Too many games would be decided by speed ties, and it adds a level of centrality to the Dragons and Steels as well. Removing Species Clause would discourage the recent rise of newer Pokemon like Shaymin into the metagame because it would be so centralized on abusing Pokemon that run multiple sets like Jirachi, Infernape, Tyranitar, and Lucario. On top of that, imagine playing a Rain Dance team of 2 Rain Dancers, 2 Kingdras, and 2 Kabutops....not something I want to play at all.

I think Evasion and OHKO's should be tested, mainly to establish a decent empirical base for what is currently a theorymon ban. Yes, OHKO's and Evasion do increase the luck elements of the game, but I think it would behoove us to get a firm sense of how much it REALLY would impact gameplay.

I've mentioned this in other threads on the topic, that most people that argue against evasion and OHKO's have no competitive gameplay experience with those moves at all. They really have no sense of how the moves factor into playing strategy. There might be the occasional wifi player out there that has encountered a jerk that tried to DT on them, or a got blindsided by a Sheer Cold once or twice. But, I don't think the majority of the competitive rule-making component of this community really has any sense of the magnitude of these moves in a serious competitive setting.

As I once mentioned elsewhere, the only experience I have with evasion and OHKO's comes from my serious endeavors to master the Battle Tower in DP. The Battle Tower community is acutely aware of the impact of evasion and OHKO's on offensive and defensive strategies. And while all BT players have horror stories of losing to three straight Guillotines, or getting haxed mercilessly by a DT Ludicolo that became unhittable -- I don't think these highly luck-based moves significantly alter the strategic elements of the game. Yes, they can end a long streak unfairly. And yes, every decent team must have some answer for Evasion and OHKO's. Some high-end teams actually utilize hax (DT Skarmory was part of a big Peterko team, and Jumpman carries Flash religiously on his TrickScarf leads). But overall, the role of Evasion and OHKO's on the BT "metagame" is not overwhelming. And keep in mind, that the BT has a skewed RNG, which makes these luck elements work against you at an enhanced rate.

Obviously these are the experiences of playing against a computerized opponent, that isn't even programmed to properly switch out against unwinnable matchups -- so the experience gained in the BT is nothing like the strategy of playing a human opponent that can abuse the nuances of luck much more effectively than the computer. But, within the confines of the BT, many of the other gameplay elements tend to track fairly closely with normal competitive play. BoltBeam is still an awesome coverage pairing, Outrage and Dragons in general are incredibly good, offensive stat boosting is a great way to sweep, blah, blah, blah -- while the BT is definitely different, it's still Pokemon. It is not unrecognizable to good players. That's one reason that many good players have ventured into the Battle Tower and pursued a serious streak. Because the basic battle strategies are not completely unfamiliar.

I didn't post this to make a big explanation of Battle Tower play. I'm just pointing out that in my experience with Evasion and OHKO's, in the only remotely competitive setting where it is commonly present, in a setting where other competitive strategies are somewhat comparable to standard metagame play -- in that setting, Evasion and OHKO's do not overwhelm or dominate the strategic landscape. Yes, they are certainly a factor. But not excessively so. Other BT players may disagree with me on this point, btw.

I think we should test the clauses, just to see exactly how they impact the metagame and to what degree. Just to give us a real empirical testing base to frame our opinion. I totally agree with Aeolus that these moves WILL increase the impact of luck on game outcomes. And I agree that as a community that values skill over luck, there is an argument for banning it on that theory alone. But, I think we owe it to ourselves to test it out and see. We will likely ban them after the results of the test -- but we will know the magnitude of the problem that we are solving with the ban.

For the record, I do not support testing everything "just to see what happens". It would be stupid to test Arceus in OU, just to see how badly it fucks everything up. But I don't think that will happen with Evasion and OHKO's, far from it. I think the effect will be "significant, but not overwhelming", if the Battle Tower is any indication -- and it may not be, but it's the only place where we have any shred of empirical evidence to support theories on the subject of Evasion and OHKO's, which is the reason I mention it in detail here.

My opinion's a bit different (surprise!). In my ideal situation, you test everything, even if you ban it for reasons other than it being "broken". Obviously OHKOs for example are a terrible strategy. However I am a lot more pragmatic than I used to be and I accept that we have only a few more months of real play, so I think putting only one or two to the test would be acceptable.

I feel Evasion clause in particular is one that would be far from broken and at best result in maybe a small, small handful of undeserved wins. While OHKOs are significantly more chaotic (30% chance of losing anything), Evasion really is not. There are numerous ways to counteract Evasion, be it Taunt, setting up your own Pokemon, or just hitting the Evasive Pokemon as it Double Teams. It takes a significant amount of time for an evasive Pokemon to even get to the levels of pure chance that OHKOs put on the battle, and the extremes you probably have to go to in order to maximize your odds with Evasion boosting are specialized enough that I think they can be considered a luck manipulation strategy no different than confusion Machamp or flinching Togekiss. It is far from a "use one move and the entire game becomes dice rolls" strategy like OHKOs are. For this reason, I would like to see it tested...

But, alluding to the same pragmatism I mentioned before, I think the amount of effort we'd put into this test when the result is probably pretty predictable, with so little time left in this generation, would outweigh any benefit we got from it. Even if we tested it, I honestly doubt there would be a significant break from the status quo for any of these, so why bother?

Banning OHKO and Evasion moves is just a case of Whiny Baby syndrome. Personally I feel we should have tested to unban these long before we looked at banning Pokemon. This idea of encouraging luck is just as ludicrous. Pokemon is not a game of pure skill. It's a game of probability. We as players merely try to maximize our chances of winning.

I've used Double Team in competitive environments before. I've done it on WiFi tournaments which allow DT. I've done it in Nintendo's VGC format. I know it's not a broken strategy. It's a viable strategy and we are currently banning it because "it's cheap". If we are truly a competitive community, we need to stop being scrubs about this and allow legitimate strategies in the game. Otherwise, we are not a competitive community.

Many of you seem to see the banning of OHKO and Evasion moves as the standard. Why is this the case? Vanilla Pokemon has no ban on these moves. We should be making a case to ban these moves, not a case for unbanning.

I've said this in an IS thread recently, but I do believe strongly that we should be following the PtW model: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned.html

Species Clause I have no opinion on being tested. I believe the game does enforce species clause in its competitive mode (Battle Tower, Stadium) and that's what our ruleset is based on (Sleep Clause etc).

Freeze Clause as Aelous pointed out is such a non-issue and it seems we've already decided against enforcing it.