Baton Pass Marathon (Coded! Looking for a server)

[Rumors]

Approved by The Immortal

So Baton Pass is this brokenly powerful play style that managed to get itself banned down to just one Pokemon on a team. It also was quite a limited play style, having few viable mons to form a competent team. So why don't we do something crazy and turn every team into a Baton Pass team? No, I don't mean by just giving every Pokemon Baton Pass. That would be boring and not that interesting. Instead, let's do something a little less than sane: Ordinary switching acts as a Baton Pass, passing along everything the mon is currently affected by that's Baton Passable, good or bad.

So suddenly all those wonderful set-up sweepers without the moves to use them can provide epic set-up support now. And now this meta will surely go straight to hyper-offense... right? Well, keep in mind defensive buffs, like Furfrou's Cotton Guard, are also passed along. And even more clever, all those otherwise useless debuff moves like Fake Tears and Scary Face? They pass too! No more can the opposing team just switch out of your Feather Dance, they have to take it like a man!

It should be noted that, beyond passing boosts and unboosts, among other things like Aqua Ring and Leech Seed, switching out is otherwise the same as always. It's still affected by Pursuit, still affected by trapping, and still unaffected by Taunt. Also, only regular switching (and Baton Pass itself) passes boosts. Volt Switch, U-Turn, Parting Shot, Whirlwind, Roar, Dragon Tail, Circle Throw, Eject Button, and Red Card to not allow Baton Passables to carry along, allowing players to ditch unwanted debuffs or force an opponent to restart their chain. It also should be noted that Baton Pass is still useful since it still allows for low priority switching to bring something in safely.

Also features Noivern without STAB Boomburst!



Bans

-Standard OU clauses

-Perish Song, because guaranteed KOs against teams without Parting Volturn or Soundproof is just lame and certain to be over centralizing

-Sand Attack, Flash, Kinesis, Mud-Slap, and Smokescreen for the same reasons Evasion is banned.

-Acupressure since its Evasion boost is much more reliably obtained and kept.



Suspect (Opinions very much welcome!)

-Mirror Shot, Mud Bomb, Secret Power, Muddy Water, Octazooka, and Night Daze may need to be banned too since they have accuracy drop chances. However, I'm not entirely sure since their chances are low or the move is very limited in distribution.



Unbans

-Baton Pass is completely unrestricted. Teams may have Baton Pass on all six members if they wish.



For reference, Baton Pass passes all of the following, and possibly some more I'm not aware of...

-Status buffs and drops, like Swords Dance and Screech

-Substitute

-Ingrain and Aqua Ring (note Ingrain requires the actual move still because of the trapping effect)

-Confusion status

-Leech Seed

-Embargo

-Focus Energy

-Gastro Acid

-Being the victim of Lock-on or Mind Reader

-Magnet Rise

-Power Trick

-Partial trapping

-Curse status

-Foresight and Odor Sleuth

-Nightmare status, if the passer and recipient are both asleep



There might be a few I'm not aware of or sure of and there might be one or two here that no longer pass. Smogon used to have a nice list, but it seems to have been lost when they updated their pokedex to the new format. If anyone knows of moves not listed that can be passed, or moves on here that can't be as of Gen VI, let me know. My internet researching has only brought up incomplete or out of date move lists.

 

[PokemonMasterDebater]

Should Taunt be added to the list of Baton Passable effects? This would be impossible in the normal game for obvious reasons, but it works similarly to these other Baton Passable effects like Leech Seed and Confusion.

 

[Rumors]

The list is just a reference list of what I'm all aware of that can be passed via Baton Pass for your convenience. If Taunt, or any other effect I missed can somehow be passed along in-game, then they would be passed in this meta.

 

[PokemonMasterDebater]

The list is just a reference list of what I'm all aware of that can be passed via Baton Pass for your convenience. If Taunt, or any other effect I missed can somehow be passed along in-game, then they would be passed in this meta.

Well, we actually don't know if Taunt is passable or not. Nearly all volatile status conditions are, but since Taunt prevents the use of the move Baton Pass, one can't know for sure whether or not it would be considered as passable via switching in game, if there was a way for it to be passed through Taunt.

 

[Kit Kasai]

Ban perish song.

 

[Grim]

Bans

-Standard OU clauses

-Perish Song, because guaranteed KOs against teams without Parting Volturn or Soundproof is just lame and certain to be over centralizing

-Sand Attack, Flash, Kinesis, Mud-Slap, and Smokescreen for the same reasons Evasion is banned.

o-o

 

[Lcass4919]

this meta sounds beast. personally, i want to try a stallesque team utilizing curse, leech seed, and taunt. gettin dem residual damage off for a sweep also hooray for not having to waste a moveslot on bpass! :D

 

[Esprite]

I feel like smeargle should be looked at; as before, it had 3mss, now it gets all 4, and can use that 4th would-be-BP move to nerf the foes in a way that can't be ignored, and they might not have the moves to overcome it.

 

[canno]

Oh god I'm going to love spamming Substitute on really stupid bulky mons with high HP. Fuck set-up moves, it's all about Substitute ;)

 

[Halliday]

I can see intimidate spam being legit, due to stacking up very quickly. I think to stay true to the meta, there should be no way around BP, and as such Parting Shot and VoltTurn should pass as well

 

[PokemonMasterDebater]

I can see intimidate spam being legit, due to stacking up very quickly.

And because of this, Defiant, Competitive, Malamar, and Belly Drum all seem like good ideas. Particularly Belly Drum, since it can be passed to any number of strong Priority users.

 

[Rumors]

PokemonMasterDebater Since Taunt is literally not passable in-game, I think it'd be best to not let it be passable in here. Besides, now that I think of it, I'm not sure a single Taunt user being able to effectively Taunt an entire team in one turn would be a good idea. That'd mean something like Whimsicott would be able to shutdown pure stall all on it's own.

Esprite Worth watching, but Smeargle is very frail, so it's hard to call if it'll be broken or not until we're able to play this.

TheBurgerKing99 I kind of want to keep those options available for players to be able to escape stuff like Curse or severe debuffs without having to resort to silliness like purposefully Roaring at the opponent's Espeon. Plus, it's not like it's an easy choice since you'll be losing all of your buffs too.


Edit: Also worth noting, there now might be reasons to use stuff like Power Swap, Guard Swap, Heart Swap, Psych Up!

Also also, something I actually didn't think about until now, stat-dropping attacks, like Close Combat and Draco Meteor, might not be so attractive if you can't easily escape them.

I can also see Sticky Web being a bit beastly. But Defog and Spin is fairly common from my understanding, so I dunno how powerful it'll be in practice.

 

[Spoonal]

I'd also like to note that since Focus Energy is passed, people can slap Scope Lens on their pokemon and spam 1.5x boosted moves, while also bypassing their opponents attempts at boosting their defenses.

This could end up biting you unless you fully commit to the strategy, though. Never the less, it'd be a pretty decent way to wallbreak.

edit: No point in stat dropping moves like overheat

 

[Grim]

I'd also like to note that since Focus Energy is passed, people can slap Scope Lens on their pokemon and spam stat dropping moves like Overheat, while also bypassing their opponents attempts at boosting their defenses.

This could end up biting you unless you fully commit to the strategy, though. Never the less, it'd be a pretty decent way to wallbreak.

Why would you?

A critter might indeed be mandatory because of how easy it is to pass defensive boosts though. Sacred Sword Terrakion sounds pretty awesome too.

 

[Halliday]

Personally, I feel like the move Stored Power will become incredibly critical in this metagame. As such, stall teams really want to run a dark type.

 

[ohgeedubs]

Venom Drench would be pretty cool with Toxic Spikes support, which Scoli gets both of (and it's a great bp'er anyway), but it might be gimmicky.

 

[insanelegend]

Download Porygon-2 could be good as it is pretty bulky and has good enough coverage to sweep, though this would usually be left to another pokemon. It would simply switch in to wall something and gain (Special) Attack boosts it could pass on. For a sweeper, I recomend Mega-Gardevoir. It gets STAB Stored Powerr and can hit Dark-types with Pixilate Hyper Voice. Therefore, carrying a Dark-type that outspeeds Mega-Gardevoir and Espeon naturally should be used. Mega Absol is good as it also has access to Magic Bounce, but doesn't have any defenses to speak of. I think the real winner of each game will be decided by who can interupt the others chain and then have a huge stat advantage they can use to sweep. Unaware Quagsire will be a thing, but Unaware doesn't stop Stored Power.

 

[Fossil_Maniac_27]

Another move that could be handy might be punishment, after 7 boosts on the opponent (I think) it gets a base power of 200. It only has 8 PP, but it could be useful. It doesn't bypass defense boosts though. Also moves with high crit chances might be better now, as they can bypass defense boosts and attack drops.
Also, U-turn intimidate Landorus.

 

[Yayz]

Something to note is that the move Baton Pass is not strictly useless, as you can use it to bring in another Poke safely, as long as you go second.

Also, fainting is really, really bad here. More than usual. Normally it's kind of okay because you get to bring in someone to get momentum, but now you lose all your boosts.
Thinking about it, that could also be good. I dunno.

Also, does phasing remove all boosts from the other team? Because that's really good if it does.

 

[EV]

^Final Gambit is a great safety net should something get out of control.

 

[Ghoul King]

Growth. Set up Sun, get a Growther in, and have it pass off its +2/+2 to the rest of the team. A lot of Pokemon get Growth+Chlorophyll, too, perhaps most notably Venusaur and Tangrowth.

More generally, Work Up and Growth are less awful because you might actually care about both parts over the course of a series of switches.

Malamar may end up being really important to the meta. Topsy-Turvy to horribly punish the enemy's attempts to stat-up enormously (Or reverse your own stat-downs by bouncing it off their Magic Bouncer), Contrary to punish Intimidate and Sticky Web abuse (And indeed with proper switch timing any attempt to stat-down Malamar's team), Contrary Superpower to get some damage in and then pass off a boost to Attack and Defense... Spinda and Shuckle also both have Contrary, and Shuckle is a more usable Pokemon in the first place.

V-Create Assist teams just got scarier. Have Spinda call it, switch it when it's in danger of being KOed, and now whatever you switched in is lightning-fast and durable. Either combine it with teammates with moves Assist can't call (Forced-switch moves [including the damaging ones], two-turn moves, move-mimicking moves, Nature Power, Protect variants, Thief, Focus Punch, Chatter, Belch, and various others) or just revel in having the ability to V-Create for a few more turns than in normal play because you're starting with boosted stats.

The best boosting moves just got better. Zygarde can Coil, switch out on the inevitable Ice-attacking switch-in, and now Rock Head Aggron cuts loose with 100% accurate 50% stronger Head Smash. Manaphy Tail Glows, and then passes it off to a fast, strong Special Attacker. Volcarona Quiver Dances, switches out if they switch in a counter, and now you have a faster, tougher and harder-hitting-if-it's-Special whatever. It's vaguely conceivable people might use Klingklang just for Shift Gear passing. Weakness Policy anything is even more obnoxious.

Acid Spray might actually be useful, since the enemy can't switch to clear it, and it can be used to clear away enormous Special Defense boosts while getting some damage in.

More generally, Hone Claws and Coil are more useful and give new life to assorted inaccurate moves because you can pass them off to Pokemon that really wish they had them or really wish they had the time to set them up can't. That Rock Head Smash Aggron I mentioned earlier will inflict appalling damage on resistant targets, and then it can pass the boost to a Focus Blaster that doesn't fear whatever switched on Aggron, or some such. Yikes.

 

[warriorman222]

Malamar 4 Meta-Knight Tier. Inkay 4 God tier. Quagsire 4 S Tier.

Seriously, Topsy Turvy is the best ragequit device since dEnIsSsS. Oh wait...

If dEnIsSsS tops this i swear to god...

 

[thdhted]

Hey! a Meta where pyroar might be useful! (noble roar)

 

[Leafshield]

I really like the look of this one!

What i'm most excited for is passing Substitutes on to your team. High HP offensive (or defensive I suppose) Pokes are gonna be great to set up a sub on the switch and promptly pass it over to a belly drummer or something. It's notable that you'll be able to give these Belly Drummers speed fairly easily as well with the advent of speed boosters like Scolipede and Sharpedo.

Defiant is going to be very valuable here, as any stat drop defensive or balanced teams are going to carry can be effortlessly be absorbed and taken advantage of. Competitve absorbers like Milotic are also worth a look, since the stat drops that boost their Special Attack are far more frequent than in standard, where it's mostly just Defog, Intimidate, and the occassional Sticky Web.

Unaware is gonna be fantastic in this meta as well; Clefable can not only boost with Belly Drum, Calm Mind, Cosmic Power, etc, it can put a stop to offensive Pokes (sans the few who can just straight up 2HKO it, obviously) and pass on said boosts. It can also provide Wish support, which is fantastic.

Moves like Memento and Healing Wish have their uses here, as they can eliminate negative boosts while either lowering the offensive stats of the opposing side or healing a teammate, respectively.

Whirlwind has no immunities aside from Suction Cups or Magic Bounce, meaning it is the most favorable of the phasing moves over the contact phazing moves that have immunities and Roar, which is blocked by Soundproof. Speaking of Magic Bounce, it can potentially cockblock many team's best chance at impeding strong sweepers with the use of scary face, tickle, charm, etc.

Overall very excited to try stuff out :]

 

[Throbulator36]

Growth. Set up Sun, get a Growther in, and have it pass off its +2/+2 to the rest of the team. A lot of Pokemon get Growth+Chlorophyll, too, perhaps most notably Venusaur and Tangrowth.

More generally, Work Up and Growth are less awful because you might actually care about both parts over the course of a series of switches.

Malamar may end up being really important to the meta. Topsy-Turvy to horribly punish the enemy's attempts to stat-up enormously (Or reverse your own stat-downs by bouncing it off their Magic Bouncer), Contrary to punish Intimidate and Sticky Web abuse (And indeed with proper switch timing any attempt to stat-down Malamar's team), Contrary Superpower to get some damage in and then pass off a boost to Attack and Defense... Spinda and Shuckle also both have Contrary, and Shuckle is a more usable Pokemon in the first place.

V-Create Assist teams just got scarier. Have Spinda call it, switch it when it's in danger of being KOed, and now whatever you switched in is lightning-fast and durable. Either combine it with teammates with moves Assist can't call (Forced-switch moves [including the damaging ones], two-turn moves, move-mimicking moves, Nature Power, Protect variants, Thief, Focus Punch, Chatter, Belch, and various others) or just revel in having the ability to V-Create for a few more turns than in normal play because you're starting with boosted stats.

The best boosting moves just got better. Zygarde can Coil, switch out on the inevitable Ice-attacking switch-in, and now Rock Head Aggron cuts loose with 100% accurate 50% stronger Head Smash. Manaphy Tail Glows, and then passes it off to a fast, strong Special Attacker. Volcarona Quiver Dances, switches out if they switch in a counter, and now you have a faster, tougher and harder-hitting-if-it's-Special whatever. It's vaguely conceivable people might use Klingklang just for Shift Gear passing. Weakness Policy anything is even more obnoxious.

Acid Spray might actually be useful, since the enemy can't switch to clear it, and it can be used to clear away enormous Special Defense boosts while getting some damage in.

More generally, Hone Claws and Coil are more useful and give new life to assorted inaccurate moves because you can pass them off to Pokemon that really wish they had them or really wish they had the time to set them up can't. That Rock Head Smash Aggron I mentioned earlier will inflict appalling damage on resistant targets, and then it can pass the boost to a Focus Blaster that doesn't fear whatever switched on Aggron, or some such. Yikes.

Actually BPass doesn't pass accuracy