Evasion Clause Discussion Topic

[AasTmO]

Mention in the pro-ban arguments about the boost to SV/SC gets when it uses Bright Powder/Lax Incense and the move substitute and the difference between it and Flame Body, Static, etc.

Substitute gets a mention for sure, but BP+Sub is actually worse than Lefties+Sub. I can show you the math if you really want to... As for Flame Body and Static, what /is/ the difference? do Flame Body and Static not work when the one with the ability behind a sub? The item is not the difference as stacking evasion is ineffective.

Don't forgot to mention precedents such as SubSD Garchomp and how complex banning would help in these cases.

"precedents such as", meaning there's more than one? Because if there is, yes I will make mention of them. If there is not, I will not, because Garchomp was (judging on public opinion, not going to make a case for that on my own) at best borderline OP without accuracy.

Also saying that why isn't paraflinch and the rest isn't banned yet isn't an argument seeing how this thread is focusing on one subject and isn't open to anything else atm.

Hence the "response" part, which says "irrelevant".

@ megados, if you stack Sand Veil and Brightpowder (the better of the 2 items) you get 28% evasion. Again, because many seem to miss this,
Sand Veil/Snow Cloak + Substitute + Lefties > Sand Veil/Snow Cloak + Substitue + Brightpowder.
There.

 

[alexwolf]

Let's clear some things up.

Many things, be it moves, abilites or items, fall into the category of hax and luck reliant.And most of them are very infuriating when they manage to appear many times in a match.
Some of them are Jirachi with his Paraflinching strategy, Sand Veil Gliscor, burns, paralyzes and freezes from their respective moves, crits, etc.

Now let's see what is the difference between them when it comes to what many people call, cheap strategy or hax abuse.

Haxrachi is very annoying to face but can it be handled if you want? Yeah! If you are tired of losing games due to getting flinched 10 times in a row, you can use Heatran, Skarmory, Jellicent, Gengar, Poison Heal Gliscor, Sableye, Magnezone, and other pokes that either can't be paralyzed and outspeed Jirachi so it can't flinch them, or they simply heal more with lefties than Jirachi can do with Iron Head and set-up on him.

If you are tired of getting haxed by moves such as Flamethrower, Ice Beam and Tbolt statusing you all the time, you can either pack pokes that are immune to those moves effects due to abilities or typing, like Gastrodon, Heatran, and Jolteon, carry a status absorber like Poison Heal Gliscor or a SleepTalker like Gyarados, or finally pack a cleric. Even if none of those solutions existed, in the end it wouldn't matter, because secondary effects of some moves are game mechanics and cannot be altered or changed by a clause.

If you are tired of getting haxed by crits, then the only thing you can do to minimze them is play more aggressive so that you get crited less often, but it doesn't really matter if solutions exist or not, since again we are talking about game mechanics.

If you are tired of getting haxed by your opponent's Sand Veil Gliscor or Snow Cloak Froslass or even Sand Veil Cacturne, then the only thing you can do is to carry your own weather inducer, which will be summoning a different weather than your opponent's of 'course. But except from this there isn't really anything else you can do to stop losing from such teams SOLELY or MOSTLY due to hax.

Something important that differentiates the cases of crits and burns,freezes, etc. from misses provided from Snow Cloak/Sand Veil is that the first cannot be prevented anyway, while the latter can with a clause!

So most of the ''hax'' that is allowed in our game is either counterable, or is a part of the game's mechanics and thus cannot be altered, except from the evasion raising abilities.

So, imo, if we think that weather is common enough to provide us a viable and polymorphic solution to those abilites, then we shouldn't implement the complex ban. If we think that it isn't then the ban should be done!

 

[zero2exe]

Then why not just ban the SV/SC + substitute combo? Since this seems to be the most consistent point of the past pages. I don't remember if there's an ability-move ban yet, but if the community already picked complex bans such as "Drizzle + Swift swim" abilities, then it's not that outrageous to think about relating abilities to moves as well. This way we can avoid unnecesarily banning pokemon like frosslass or cacturne that, let's face it, already struggle to compete even at their current tiers -_-

 

[DDRMaster]

@ megados, if you stack Sand Veil and Brightpowder (the better of the 2 items) you get 28% evasion. Again, because many seem to miss this,
Sand Veil/Snow Cloak + Substitute + Lefties > Sand Veil/Snow Cloak + Substitue + Brightpowder.
There.

Unless my math is wrong, Sand Veil+Brightpowder gives you a better chance of getting an intact Sub than Sand Veil+Leftovers. Sand Veil+Brightpowder stacks to 28%, but Leftovers can let you get an extra Sub. Therefore, the chance of having an intact Sub is equal to 1 - the probability that your opponent will break all of the Subs, as shown below.

SV+Brightpowder: 1 - .72^4 = 73.13%
SV+Leftovers: 1 - .8^5 = 67.23%

Taking the fact that Stealth Rock will likely make it so you get one less Sub up, you still find that Brightpowder is the better item.

SV+Brightpowder: 1 - .72^3 = 62.68%
SV+Leftovers: 1 - .8 ^4 = 59.04%

The only way Leftovers would be better is if you get your Pokemon that resists SR in with something like U-turn or on a move that won't do anything to it so Leftovers would get you back to full health. This would allow you to make 5 Subs instead of 3, but that only has an extra 4.55% chance of getting you an intact Sub.

Although, Brightpowder is still better in every other case, especially when you consider the fact that your opponent may decide to attack as you switch in, and Brightpowder gives you a better chance of avoiding it.

With the bans overall, I do agree that the items are annoying, but not particularly broken. Double Team and Minimize, however, should remain banned as they can be abused by just about every Pokemon and you can stack the boosts once you get your intact Sub. They can also be Baton Passed for another member of your team to abuse them without even using up a moveslot for Substitute.

 

[champz]

The main reason I have a problem with the evasion abilities is that if I'm using a 100% accurate move, I want it to hit 100% of the time. It should not be up to my opponent to decide whether or not I can use 100% accurate moves. I'm not going to blame my opponent for something like missing Fire Blast. I was the one who decided to use a move with 85% accuracy.

If you want you moves to hit 100% of the time, then you should be using a perfect accuracy move, like Aerial Ace. Just changing the example to Thunder and Thunderbolt, as we also have Shock Wave. If you think 100% accuracy (it doesn't mean hit 100% of the time) isn't enough, give up even more power and pick Shock Wave. By picking Thunderbolt instead of Shock Wave, you are losing the opportunity to hit 100% of the time, the same way you lose accuracy by picking Thunder. It was you who decided to pick a not perfect accurate move (as you have the chance to).
Regarding "It should not be up to my opponent to decide whether or not I can use 100% accurate moves", Thunder and Hurricane in rain has 100%, so if I'm playing a rain team and my opponent changes the weather, he is deciding wheather or not my moves are 100% accurate. I'm not discussing the difference in strategies, viability and the like. The fact is: if I don't take into account my opponent, I have 100% Thunder and Hurricane (provided that I set up rain).

There are many ways to combat evasion (just tanking Snow Cloak and Sand Veil into account): perfect accuracy moves, Hone Claws, No Guard, Mold Breaker, changing weather, Zoom/Wide Lens, Mind Reader.
Why don't use them? Because evasion is so rare, that we just don't care about countering it. It's just a bad strategy to counter another bad strategy.

Pokémon is very similar to Poker: luck factor is involved, but in the long run, luck is the same for everyone and those who play better win more. You can't win 100% of the matches, but I bet that a player with more skill has a higher rate than someone who relies on luck. It's not the result of one individual battle that make a good player.

 

[AasTmO]

Unless my math is wrong, Sand Veil+Brightpowder gives you a better chance of getting an intact Sub than Sand Veil+Leftovers.

Well there goes my credibility on the field of math.. So yeah. The general idea of "the probability is too low" still stands though

 

[alexwolf]

Actually, lefties benefit a SV/SC mon more... but alas, I drift off. I'll try to make an overview of the discussion, for as far as possible.

Arguments pro evasion ban
1: Evasion can decide matches by giving a pokemon a free turn, for which he has to do nothing.
2: Evasion overcentralizes
3: Evasion cannot be countered within the meta
4: Evasion lets our opponent decide how accurate our moves are, as opposed to we deciding it ourselves; If I use Ice Beam for the 100% hit-rate, I want it to hit 100%.
5: Evasion lets luck dominate skill.
6: Substitute can basically multiply the chances of dodging an attack, hereby increasing the evasion that much more for free.

These arguments were (besides flaming and ad hominems) responded to by
1: The pokemon that have Snow Cloak / Sand Veil as abilities generally do not have enough power to be able to decide a match with 1 free turn, and it is not even that likely to get that free turn. In the case of evasion items, the chance of it happening is smaller than that of one of the 100acc/90pow moves statusing, which can decide a match just as well (imagine a starmie Ice Beam freezing your Tentacruel)
2: If evasion would overcentralize, why is it not there already? It's available in many forms and ways, yet no-one really uses it.
3: In the case of abilities, weather changing does that, other than that, Machamp and infinite accuracy moves do that. Just hitting hard might very well work as well.
4: But there is so much decided by your opponent... Evasion is just one of many things. @ the 100% rate: You'll want it to OHKO Salamence with Hidden Power Ice, too, but he can run Yache to survive. You can't determine everything in a pokemon game.
5: It doesn't, as the luck will only kick in in a small amount of games, even on a team that's built to abuse it.
6: The odds of missing a 100% accuracy attack vs a pokemon with BrightPowder setting up 5 substitutes are 41%. So, in 41% of the cases, a pokemon will be at 1% health with a free substitute, and (in all but 8% of the cases) no boosts. That's not a gamebreaking advantage at all..
Sub+Lefties+SV/SC is a bit more obscene though, with 41% chance of getting one free turn, and 26% chance of getting one more. The thing here is that in current OU there are no pokemon that can reliably abuse these free turns, as the SV pokemon (Gliscor, Cacturne) are pretty easily walled when using a SubSD set, and the SC set rely on hail in the first place, which is hard to keep up, and are quite easily countered as well (Froslass, Glaceon, Beartic)

Arguments contra ban of evasion in any way:
1: It's a non-significant portion of the metagame. (in a generous estimate 6,7% of the teams use it, and in a more generous estimate, <1% of matches are decided by it as shown here)
2: It hurts the metagame more than it benefits it.
3: Luck is part of the game, and as such, so is evasion.
4: Only things that are truly broken, that the metagame has no way to deal with, should be banned, and evasion is not one of them.
5: There are many more ways of hax (HaxRachi, FlinchKiss, Quick Claw, Focus Band), why ban this one and not ban those others?

Responded to by: (again, disregarding flaming and other happiness)
1: It may not be a big portion, but if it decides 1% of my matches, that's 1% too much (4% has been falsely thrown around here, but that's irrelevant)
2: It lets luck take over over skill, which is something unwanted in the metagame. The "banning" of Froslass, Sandslash, Cacturne and friends on their respective weather teams is collateral damage and not more hurting than the hax on them is (refer to argument 5 pro)
3: Luck currently is part of the game, but we can't do anything about most of the luck, i.e. critical hits. This is part of luck we can combat, and as we should minimalize luck, we should combat.
4: I didn't read any real arguments against this so far, besides from perhaps strawmanning that evasion is broken, the metagame just hasn't figured out yet.
5: Irrelevant, we're talking about evasion now.

I believe I caught the most of it as neutral as possible. Had I missed something, I'd be glad to edit it in if pointed out in a not ad-hominem way. I suggest y'all stop flaming at eachother for having different opinions, either way. Deal with the argument, not the person argumenting.

About this list. You can't say that you caught the most of it as neutral as possible when you are so biased. For example instead of writing this marvelous sentence :

5: There are many more ways of hax (HaxRachi, FlinchKiss, Quick Claw, Focus Band), why ban this one and not ban those others?

5: Irrelevant, we're talking about evasion now.

you could have tried to actually read the arguments that have been made, and make a less biased and half-assed answer. Several people, including me, have mentioned answers to the 5th argument that you presented. If you really want to make a proper list, then you should also dedicate some of your time to find the real arguments, isntead of creating a twisted list and then saying that you were as neutral as possible.

 

[X5Dragon]

That is the neutral answer to that argument, stop hating on him when some guys are just trying to steer the topic away. Also it isn't about hax, it's about an ability gone broken, it doesn't matter if Jirachi has a 100% flinch move or not, it doesn't factor into this debate unless he gets SC/SV too.

 

[alexwolf]

That is the neutral answer to that argument, stop hating on him when some guys are just trying to steer the topic away. Also it isn't about hax, it's about an ability gone broken, it doesn't matter if Jirachi has a 100% flinch move or not, it doesn't factor into this debate unless he gets SC/SV too.

No the actual answer is that everything else related to hax is either counterable or cannot be avoided by a clause, unlike SV/SC.

And the topic was never about those abilities being broken, read the OP.

 

[jas61292]

No the actual answer is that everything else related to hax is either counterable or cannot be avoided by a clause, unlike SV/SC.

If you want you moves to hit 100% of the time, then you should be using a perfect accuracy move, like Aerial Ace. Just changing the example to Thunder and Thunderbolt, as we also have Shock Wave. If you think 100% accuracy (it doesn't mean hit 100% of the time) isn't enough, give up even more power and pick Shock Wave. By picking Thunderbolt instead of Shock Wave, you are losing the opportunity to hit 100% of the time, the same way you lose accuracy by picking Thunder. It was you who decided to pick a not perfect accurate move (as you have the chance to).

The simple fact is that it is only "uncounterable" because people don't like the counter. Ignoring its existence does not make it non-existent.

 

[alexwolf]

The simple fact is that it is "uncounterable" because people don't like the counter. Ignoring its existence does not make it non existent.

For something to be considered as a counter to a strategy it has to be viable in the metagame. Anything that is one sided and has only 1 purpose is considered as gimmick and unviable.
I have told you this many times but you refuse to listen. Always hitting moves are unviable in this metagame. You may think that they are not, because if the whole meta was focused around evasion, then they would see some use, but believe me if people were actually using these moves to counter evasion, then evasion raising -insert move,ability or whatever- would have been banned.

 

[jas61292]

I have never once said that those strategies were in any way good. However, the argument that they are opposing is that evasion is somehow different because it has no counters. Are you telling me that the true counters for a Iron Head hax Jirachi is any less gimmicky? No. Both can be beaten without gimmicks, but if you want to guarantee it 100%, you must use a suboptimal strategy.

The simple fact is that the counters do exist, so any argument that relies on the fact that you cannot do anything about it is simply fictitious.

 

[alexwolf]

I have never once said that those strategies were in any way good. However, the argument that they are opposing is that evasion is somehow different because it has no counters. Are you telling me that the true counters for a Iron Head hax Jirachi is any less gimmicky? No. Both can be beaten without gimmicks but if you want to guarantee it 100%, you must use a suboptimal strategy.

The simple fact is that the counters do exist, so any argument that relies on the fact that you cannot be anything about it are simply fictitious.

Wtf you talking about?
Do you want to know the amount of damage that Iron Head does to max HP heatran? 5.19 - 6.23%. This means that even if you get 24 flinches in a row, Heatran will be at 100% health and you will be out of PPs.
Do you want to know the amount of damage Iron Head does to standard Ferro? 8.23 - 9.94%. You will die first from Iron Barb damage before Ferro dies.
Do you want to know the amount of damage Iron Head does to standard SD Gliscor? 16.1 - 18.92%. So at best you do 6,4% per turn while he outspeeds and 2-3hkoes with EQ.

Want more? I can continue if you want, but i think this is enough.

Haxrachi can be beaten without using any suboptimal strategy, but by using perfectly OU viable pokes, unlike when dealing with Evasion.

Untill you manage to list any real counter to Evasion, no one is going to listen to you talking about Aerial Ace and Shock Wave.

 

[AasTmO]

For example instead of writing this marvelous sentence :
you could have tried to actually read the arguments that have been made, and make a less biased and half-assed answer. If you really want to make a proper list, then you should also dedicate some of your time to find the real arguments, isntead of creating a twisted list and then saying that you were as neutral as possible.

To this, I shall respond with a quote of my own:

Had I missed something, I'd be glad to edit it in if pointed out in a not ad-hominem way. I suggest y'all stop flaming at eachother for having different opinions, either way. Deal with the argument, not the person argumenting.

And while that sounds ad-hominemish, I shall respond anyway, because I'm trying to make an argument clear.
Just explain this one thing to me. How is it relevant to a ban for evasion whether or not Flinching should be banned? Or whether or not flinching can be countered?
But let's assume it is, and take your argument for it, that "counters to evasion are unviable".
What makes one strategy viable, and the other unviable?
Is Aura Sphere unviable because you say so? Is Machamp unviable?
If I use Cacturne in OU, is that unviable? Now if I get the top 20 with Cacturne in my team, is it still unviable?

My point in this case is that sense of viability can change through the metagame changing. As (I believe) you said, it only takes one of the top players to do it for it to get much followers.. And in my opinion a similar thing could very well be true for no-miss moves. Let's take Donphan as an example: he was presented for OU analysis time and time again, and he kept on being sold as "unviable". At one time, Seven Deadly Sins swooped in and said "guys, let's be reasonable, Donphan may be viable. Let's test.
The rest is history, Donphan is one of the top spinners now, and nearly considered a must on sun-teams with Volca.
But, let's give that it's uncounterable, too: Name me 2 counters to Luke, regardless of what set he is running. I think you will have a hard time doing so, as he can deal with nearly every pokemon in OU one on one when given the set beforehand. Yet still, Luke is nowhere near top OU at the moment.
Point with this: Uncounterable =/= need to be banned.

Long story short: I did find, and still do find the irrelevancy argument (with which I agree) stronger than the incounterability argument (with which I do not agree) . Feel free to try and convince me, if you succeed I'll change the list with pleasure and joy.

 

[jas61292]

Do you want to know the amount of damage that Iron Head does to max HP heatran? 5.19 - 6.23%. This means that even if you get 24 flinches in a row, Heatran will be at 100% health and you will be out of PPs.
Do you want to know the amount of damage Iron Head does to standard Ferro? 8.23 - 9.94%. You will die first from Iron Barb damage before Ferro dies.
Do you want to know the amount of damage Iron Head does to standard SD Gliscor? 16.1 - 18.92%. So at best you do 6,4% per turn while he outspeeds and 2-3hkoes with EQ.

Want more? I can continue if you want, but i think this is enough.

Haxrachi can be beaten without using any suboptimal strategy, but by using perfectly OU viable pokes, unlike when dealing with Evasion.

Untill you manage to list any real counter to Evasion, no one is going to listen to you talking about Aerial Ace and Shock Wave.

I was referring to the flinching itself, not the specific Pokemon. Since we are talking about evasion as a whole, not specific Pokemon, a single comparison to a single Pokemon is not a good example. Sure, it is easy to counter Jirachi, but it is also easy to counter Gliscor or any evasion abuser without resorting to gimmick. It is my fault though for making it seem like I was talking specifically about Jirachi though, so now I will clarify.

You talk about evasion as if it has no counters. Then when a counter is presented you reject it because it does not fit in with your current accepted strategies. And yet you ignore other things that have that exact same problem.

Look at flinching as a whole. How can you stop it? Inner Focus? With Dragonite and Alakazam having new DW abilities, what respectable Pokemon would ever use this? Lucario, and that is about it. And Lucario is hardly enough of a tank to switch into most flinchers and hit back. So yes, this is a sub-optimal strategy. So are the ways to stop evasion as a whole. But in both cases, they exist.

In the general case, things like this can be countered with sub optimal strategies. In specific cases, specific Pokemon can counter each other. it is no different than anything else, so trying to treat it as a special case is just ignoring facts you don't like.

 

[alexwolf]

I was referring to the flinching itself, not the specific Pokemon. Since we are talking about evasion as a whole, not specific Pokemon, a single comparison to a single Pokemon is not a good example. Sure, it is easy to counter Jirachi, but it is also easy to counter Gliscor or any evasion abuser without resorting to gimmick. It is my fault though for making it seem like I was talking specifically about Jirachi though, so now I will clarify.

You talk about evasion as if it has no counters. Then when a counter is presented you reject it because it does not fit in with your current accepted strategies. And yet you ignore other things that have that exact same problem.

Look at flinching as a whole. How can you stop it? Inner Focus? With Dragonite and Alakazam having new DW abilities, what respectable Pokemon would ever use this? Lucario, and that is about it. And Lucario is hardly enough of a tank to switch into most flinchers and hit back. So yes, this is a sub-optimal strategy. So are the ways to stop evasion as a whole. But in both cases, they exist.

In the general case, things like this can be countered with sub optimal strategies. In specific cases, specific Pokemon can counter each other. it is no different than anything else, so trying to treat it as a special case is just ignoring facts you don't like.

First of all it is not my opinion that it doesn't fit in the accepted strategies, it is a fact. Every single person knows that always hitting moves are unviable, except you.

Now to continue. You are telling me to look to the flinch effect as a whole? Ok let's do that. How about avoiding the effect, simply by moving first, or putting up a sub? Are we fine?

So again flinching CAN be countered without using any suboptimal strategy, unlike Evasion

 

[Boorego]

You guys know that people often use rapid spin (which is an even WORSE attack than thoese bad never missing attacks and have worse distripution) just to have a chance at countering entry hazards.
So is seems that people are more than willing to use a sub-opitmal moves to counter a strategy.....if this strategy is game-changing/powerful enough often enough to justify it's use. The thing about sand veil/snow cloak is that it is appently not common enough or game changing enough to justify the use of things like swift espeon or hail cloyster. Gliscor is the only pokemon that even sometimes uses a veil in it's own weather and in about 95% of games with sand veil gliscor, the misses are nothing more than a minor inconveinience. I honestly get BSed out of more wins from random ice beam freezes than evasion abilities of any sort if you want to talk about haxy victories. Just saying.

 

[Jimera0]

*sigh* let me just repeat it one more time and have more than one person respond to it.

I have done the calculations here that show just how common SV/SC pokemon are. They appear in approximately 6.77% of battles where there is a possibility their abilities could be activated. In reality, taking into account all the very generous benefits of the doubt I gave the pro-ban side (such as assuming every last hail team has Mamoswine, and that anyone actually uses SV Dugtrio intentionally), the actual percentage of abusers is probably something like 4-5% of games. But even using the generous percentage, and giving it a 20% chance of affecting the outcome of the game (which is 5x more likely than the 4% number given by someone who actually used SV Gliscor and is pro complex ban), I still ended up with only 1.35% of games being affected by this ability.

1.35% people, at the absolute worst. When I used the percentage given by 2sly4u of affecting the outcome of 4% of battles he used SV Gliscor in (remember, this coming from a guy who wants the ban and actually used it himself), it works out to a whopping 0.27% of games being affected by it.

So, I suggest that anyone looking to make a pro-ban argument who wishes to be taken seriously must take the extreme lack of prevalence of SV and SC abuse in the meta into consideration. This is not something that can be ignored. You have to justify why it is worth banning something that only affects less than 1% of games, or I for one, will not take you seriously.

Until someone makes and actual argument addressing this, I'm done here.

 

[iamdanielcruces]

Seconding Boorego's argument, there are people willing to use Foresight and Rapid Spin, just to get rid of hazards (there was even a warstory featuring a Hitmontop with these). I think that if evasion was actually a popular strategy (as it seems it is not), people would find ways around it. Perhaps Machamp and Golurk would be OU.

Unrelated, but with Hone Claws around, Double Team seems less threatening... +6 Evasion vs. +6 Accuracy/Attack?

 

[pharaohcalvin]

Once again, we should not be banning stuff that is not broken. We really should be banning stuff that is not broken that hardly ever happens in a battl eto begin with. Less then 1% >.>.

I am just wondering where are 3 voters sit on the issue at the moment.

 

[eriados]

You guys know that people often use rapid spin (which is an even WORSE attack than thoese bad never missing attacks and have worse distripution) just to have a chance at countering entry hazards.

Rapid Spin isn't used for the fact that it is an attack, it is used for its support capabilities. Meanwhile, the only reason you would use Aerial Ace or Aura Sphere would be for attacking.

So is seems that people are more than willing to use a sub-opitmal moves to counter a strategy.....if this strategy is game-changing/powerful enough often enough to justify it's use.

Entry hazards aren't a strategy, they are a prevalent factor. And I wouldn't call Rapid Spin sub-optimal if it completely neuters their effect...

I have done the calculations here that show just how common SV/SC pokemon are. They appear in approximately 6.77% of battles where there is a possibility their abilities could be activated. In reality, taking into account all the very generous benefits of the doubt I gave the pro-ban side (such as assuming every last hail team has Mamoswine, and that anyone actually uses SV Dugtrio intentionally), the actual percentage of abusers is probably something like 4-5% of games. But even using the generous percentage, and giving it a 20% chance of affecting the outcome of the game (which is 5x more likely than the 4% number given by someone who actually used SV Gliscor and is pro complex ban), I still ended up with only 1.35% of games being affected by this ability.

1.35% people, at the absolute worst. When I used the percentage given by 2sly4u of affecting the outcome of 4% of battles he used SV Gliscor in (remember, this coming from a guy who wants the ban and actually used it himself), it works out to a whopping 0.27% of games being affected by it.

So, I suggest that anyone looking to make a pro-ban argument who wishes to be taken seriously must take the extreme lack of prevalence of SV and SC abuse in the meta into consideration. This is not something that can be ignored. You have to justify why it is worth banning something that only affects less than 1% of games, or I for one, will not take you seriously.

Isn't that 1% too much? At what point do you say that evasion is finally bannable? I'd rather have that 1% of games that are decided by random chance to not be there, if possible.

Have to say that less banns the better. If we bann this then where does it stop?

It stops here. Stop throwing around fallacious arguments and flaming trying to make a point. And yes, both sides are culpable.

 

[Stratos]

Furthermore, anyone from the pro-ban group has yet to acknowledge the fact that I made this post, let alone respond to it.

Evasion is not broken. Jimera's calculations make this insanely clear. If it was broken, it would not be sitting at the comfortable barely% usage. So I want to hear a legitimate argument not why evasion should be banned but why absolutely ANYTHING should be banned for the purpose of "fun." Who gets to decide fun? Why do they get to choose for everybody? Why should we prevent people from running nonbroken strategies for the purpose of a couple people and their vision of "fun?" Where does this optimization of a "fun" meta end?

To the Council themselves, who seem to be more concerned with consistency, I ask, when did a consistent ruleset become more important than a minimal ruleset? It's clear that these abilities are not broken, and Smogon's policy is to not ban anything unbroken. Which would be easier, a simple reword of evasion clause (hell, you could even not reword it and say that the rule is a bit inconsistent) or the banning of team combinations from OU play? A consistent ruleset is only good to make things easier, and a complex ban sure as balls isn't the way to achieve that. And again, why on earth would we ban things purely for the sake of consistency? If you want to ban Sand Veil and Snow Cloak because you as well are sick of hax, as the other pro-ban people are, then go ahead. I won't be happy, but at least you'll have a legit motivation. Consistency is absolutely a terrible reason to implement more bans.

 

[jas61292]

Isn't that 1% too much? At what point do you say that evasion is finally bannable? I'd rather have that 1% of games that are decided by random chance to not be there, if possible.

This is one point that keeps coming up that I would like to address. People act like anything decided by luck is bad and that sure, it might be a small amount of battles, but none is better.

Well, as people have said in the past, Pokemon is not chess. Luck is part of the game. Removing this won't remove luck, and even if it did that would not make the game any better. Having skill in Pokemon is not just being the best at pure strategic calculations. Things will never go exactly according to plans. No, skill in Pokemon is mastery of risk management. Removing some luck from the game will not change the reliance on skill in the slightest. Will it alter the game? Yes. But not towards a more skill based game. Just a different game. And that is just a pointless change.

There was another thread a while back all about skill and luck, and I think one of the most important things brought up there was that skill is not the opposite of luck. People act like one cannot exist with the other around, but as far as I am concerned, the two are quite independent. Limiting a luck based factor simply because it "will make skill more important" is an argument that does not even take into account what skill itself is.

 

[Pocket]

100% accurate moves should hit all the time!

So I guess Confuse Ray should be banned because it makes that 100% Ice Beam you clicked to not happen 50% of the time? Or should we ban T-Wave / Stun Spore, too, because paralyzed Pokemon's chance of hitting with a 100%-move is 75% now? Not to mention confusion causes you to inflict damage to yourself, and paralysis cuts your Speed.

Do you see the flaw in your reasoning? How are such hax acceptable and a 20% weather-dependent chance of miss something that "just cannot happen"? This is the scope of negligible significance that pro-ban camp are trying to clause, just because they don't want to deal with this nominal hax.

Sand Veil has no drawbacks, unlike other hax abilities!

It's important to note that these abilities are not 0 drawbacks. It actually has much bigger drawbacks than Serene Grace or Super Luck, which needs you to use an attack for the effect to happen. With Serene Grace / Super Luck you must "sacrifice" a moveslot, but with Sand Veil users they must "sacrifice" an entire team slot just to activate its effect. And if it ever faces the 25% of the teams with Politoed, Abomasnow, or Ninetales, the Sand Veil boost is not even guaranteed until the weather war is won.

Yes, Tyranitar is not a bad Pokemon, but it does have exploitable weaknesses that only compound when coupled with Gliscor (Landorus, Mienshao, Scizor, Virizion, etc). It also doesn't change the fact that you had to use an entire team slot just to activate Sand Veil, effectively restricting the options available to the team.

Other hax are counter-able!

alexwolf If you are tired of getting haxed by moves such as Flamethrower, Ice Beam and Tbolt statusing you all the time, you can either pack pokes that are immune to those moves effects due to abilities or typing, like Gastrodon, Heatran, and Jolteon, carry a status absorber like Poison Heal Gliscor or a SleepTalker like Gyarados, or finally pack a cleric. Even if none of those solutions existed, in the end it wouldn't matter, because secondary effects of some moves are game mechanics and cannot be altered or changed by a clause.

So I have to pack an Ice-type / Aromatherapy / Lum Berry to prevent a potential 10% frz? You make it sound like there are many options, but in actual practice, you can't prevent the Ice Beam from potentially freezing the several Pokemon that lack those resources. You also can't afford to switch out each time to your Ice-type / Lum Berry mon to tank that Ice Beam either (would you switch in your Lum TTar into a LO Starmie, just because it may potentially Ice Beam frz / Thunder par you?). Saying that you could counter "hax" is silly, because you can't anticipate when it happens.

I mean if we want to eliminate hax, we can always ban Rock Slide, Body Slam, Scald, Discharge, Lava Plume, Thunder, etc without messing with game mechanics. I think we all agree that such hax are not pervasive enough to be banned. The case is even stronger for Sand Veil / Snow Cloak, which is far less used.

If you are tired of getting haxed by crits, then the only thing you can do to minimze them is play more aggressive so that you get crited less often, but it doesn't really matter if solutions exist or not, since again we are talking about game mechanics.

You could also minimize Sand Veil misses by playing more aggressively so that you wont give Gliscor much time to sweep or let alone set up. You could use more accurate moves like Surf instead of Hydro Pump to minimize the chances of misses. You could use walls that can afford to miss once or even twice. What you outlined are not ways to counter hax, since they don't exist, but way to deal or minimize hax. One can also deal or minimize the passive Evasion boost, too.

 

[Jimera0]

This is one point that keeps coming up that I would like to address. People act like anything decided by luck is bad and that sure, it might be a small amount of battles, but none is better.

Well, as people have said in the past, Pokemon is not chess. Luck is part of the game. Removing this won't remove luck, and even if it did that would not make the game any better. Having skill in Pokemon is not just being the best at pure strategic calculations. Things will never go exactly according to plans. No, skill in Pokemon is mastery of risk management. Removing some luck from the game will not change the reliance on skill in the slightest. Will it alter the game? Yes. But not towards a more skill based game. Just a different game. And that is just a pointless change.

There was another thread a while back all about skill and luck, and I think one of the most important things brought up there was that skill is not the opposite of luck. People act like one cannot exist with the other around, but as far as I am concerned, the two are quite independent. Limiting a luck based factor simply because it "will make skill more important" is an argument that does not even take into account what skill itself is.

Ok, I was going to make a post along these lines myself, but jas has said it better than I every could have hoped to.

You are not making the game more "skill" based by eliminating a luck factor. You are simply attempting to shape the game to fit a skill set you prefer.

To the council: We have pretty solidly established that SV/SC and the evasion items are not broken individually by now (though combined hasn't been thoroughly addressed, but I strongly suspect the result wouldn't change). As such, the decision comes down to what the purpose of bans on Smogon are. Are they here to just balance the game and promote variety, or are they here to create a sort of "ideal" metagame, based on the elimination of elements we don't like? I for one think it is most definitely the former, and I believe that the documentation here on the forums supports me. However it is not up to me to decide; that is for you. I strongly urge you though to remember that the negative impact on the metagame of any ban, even though that impact may be small, is still there. If a factor has been shown to have virtually no negative impact on the metagame itself, is it really worth the inflicting the side consequences on the metagame in order to eliminate that factor?