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My Theories about Banning
- Thread starter LionFang
- Start date
I'd like to point out the flawed logic of the ice cube theory in the first post. The whole point of banning an "ice cube" is not that an equal size one will take it's place, but hopefully 3 or 4 smaller cubes will take it's place. To be fair, there is the chance for smaller threat to gain the right set of conditions to become dominant, but then the ice cube metaphor falls apart anyway, as real ice cubes can't make themselves larger.
To see this in action look at the difference between ou and uber. In uber where nothing is banned the top pokemon is used over half the time, because nothing does special sweeping better than kyogre. By banning kyogre, there is a larger diversity of special sweepers in ou.
To see this in action look at the difference between ou and uber. In uber where nothing is banned the top pokemon is used over half the time, because nothing does special sweeping better than kyogre. By banning kyogre, there is a larger diversity of special sweepers in ou.
It kind of irks me that people keep making new threads to say the same (debunked, in this case) arguments that have been raised in several prior, still active threads.
The slippery slope argument fails as soon as you realise this: Assuming all pokemon in the metagame can be ranked in order of power, the gaps between adjacent pokemon are not the same.
The slippery slope argument only applies if the removal of the very top pokemon automatically means the metagame is equivalent, but with one pokemon missing. (I.e. you remove the top entry of the list, and every pokemon moves up an exactly equal distance so that the second-top pokemon is now the top).
To make the slippery slope argument means you have totally misunderstood why something is banned in the first place. They are not banned because they are the best pokemon in the metagame. That logic is imbecilic, since there would always be one or more 'best' pokemon. Pokemon are banned because they are more powerful than the rest of the metagame by too large a margin.
In fact, if you raise the slippery slope argument, your position must be that there can be NO banned pokemon, i.e. that OU should have the Ubers in it. In which case, why don't you just play Ubers? It's like complaining that UU doesn't have enough powerful pokemon in it, and so the OU pokemon should be allowed in it.
The Ice Cube argument is flawed for this reason.
That said, the OP's position on defensiveness is quite accurate. Particularly with the much wider and stronger variety of offensive moves available and the continuous development thereof, coupled with the game's internal critical hit engine, offensive pokemon are always going to be closer to the top of the pool than defensive pokemon. It's just part of how the game has been constructed.
As Dan Paskins famously said: There are right and wrong answers. There are never wrong threats.
The slippery slope argument fails as soon as you realise this: Assuming all pokemon in the metagame can be ranked in order of power, the gaps between adjacent pokemon are not the same.
The slippery slope argument only applies if the removal of the very top pokemon automatically means the metagame is equivalent, but with one pokemon missing. (I.e. you remove the top entry of the list, and every pokemon moves up an exactly equal distance so that the second-top pokemon is now the top).
To make the slippery slope argument means you have totally misunderstood why something is banned in the first place. They are not banned because they are the best pokemon in the metagame. That logic is imbecilic, since there would always be one or more 'best' pokemon. Pokemon are banned because they are more powerful than the rest of the metagame by too large a margin.
In fact, if you raise the slippery slope argument, your position must be that there can be NO banned pokemon, i.e. that OU should have the Ubers in it. In which case, why don't you just play Ubers? It's like complaining that UU doesn't have enough powerful pokemon in it, and so the OU pokemon should be allowed in it.
The Ice Cube argument is flawed for this reason.
That said, the OP's position on defensiveness is quite accurate. Particularly with the much wider and stronger variety of offensive moves available and the continuous development thereof, coupled with the game's internal critical hit engine, offensive pokemon are always going to be closer to the top of the pool than defensive pokemon. It's just part of how the game has been constructed.
As Dan Paskins famously said: There are right and wrong answers. There are never wrong threats.
Here's the problem. Walling half the metagame is not centralizing. OHKOing or 2HKOing and outspeeding is. Salamence required an almost dedicated check to revenge kill, or amazing prediction. For instance, I ran a ScarfMie with Ice Beam pretty much to OHKO Salamence after one DD (which, by the way, it failed to do with a Yache Berry). It could then proceed to wreck a team with a diverse movepool, a STAB resisted only by steel types, 400+ attack, and 350+ speed. But I digress. We're talking about defensive "threats".
Being able to wall a significant portion of the metagame (probably not even 50% by the way) is NOT as threatening as eating half of the metagame in one hit. Additionally, one half (for example's sake) is walled. The other half can almost all 2HKO at worst. Additionally, in most cases, Blissey could not pose a threat to most Pokemon; it could just act as a Sponge.
Obviously different Pokemon will affect the metagame in different ways, and centralize it to different extents.
You seem to be implying that banning Salamence for unpredictability and power was an excuse to change the metagame because people "didn't like how we needed to play with it." That's probably true; people didn't like having an un-checkable threat.
But that's no different from allowing something like Mewtwo or Kyogre in OU. They are banned because people would not like the fact that they would be un-checkable.
There are reasons why Pokemon aren't fit for the metagame, and people won't like the metagame for those reasons. And that's why stuff is banned, to make an ENJOYABLE METAGAME.
You are either a fucking retard, or a troll. Looks to be option A since you went through all the effort. What you are suggesting is that anything that can sweep is uber. I mean holy fuck, people can sweep with things like Bilbarel under the right circumstances, DOES THAT MAKE HIM UBER?? How the hell do you think this shitty gimmick Beedrill does? I mean really, it did about 60% damage to that Garchomp, who isn't even a wall or incredibly bulky. WOAH SO IMBA, IT CANT EVEN TAKE OUT A SWEEPER.......Not to mention the numerous other things like Skarmory or Rotom-A who are happy to Roar/smash it.
I can't honestly take you seriously when you write something as stupid as this. How is that a sound reason to ban Beedrill? Colin was probably trolling you, SR fucks Beedrill sideways, and it has an extremely hard time to get in and actually set up. Heck do you think Charizard is uber because it can use Belly Drum and Substitute, OMGOSH UBER
Shizzle, while your point is valid, Garchomp actually is pretty damn bulky. I really think that you're making your argument harder to understand by swearing and using CAPS IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL.
This is actually incorrect. Take Rampardos, with the second-highest Attack stat in the game, and the highest in OU - an Adamant, max Attack Rampardos fails to OHKO Blissey with STAB 150BP Head Smash without stealth rock, or with stealth rock and two turns of leftovers (on the switch-in + protect). Or take Infernape, with STAB SE Close Combat off 104 base Attack. On the specially-based mix set, it fails to OHKO Blissey, even with SR, if it has lost its LO (Knock Off support). So since Blissey is merely 2HKO'd by most non-fighting type physical moves (since I'll admit the previous scenario is somewhat unlikely), it can use Wish on the switch-in, then either cripple the physical attacker with either T-wave or Toxic and heal of a lot of the damage with Wish, then switch out, or switch out straightaway, passing Wish to a teammate. Blissey takes zero skill to play, as if you're up against any kind of special attacker bar Crocune or similar, or SubCM Jirachi or similar, said special attacker will be forced to switch out. And since Crocune/SubCM Jirachi etc take time to set up, Blissey can still perform any support roles required of her (i.e. pass Wish, cure status with Aromatherapy, or whatever).
Name one good Pokemon which regularly runs Knock Off, which Infernape is going to switch in on.
To the people who think Mence was banned for having no counters: ScarfCress says hi.
To the people who think ScarfCress doesn't count as a counter since it is "unsuitable for the metagame", Breloom's only true counter is a heavily Defence-EV'd Hypno. Which one of the two is more suitable for the metagame?
I think the best point the OP mentioned is the fact that the current banning system does not take into account defensive pokemon as much. When you look at all the special attackers in OU, you'll see that almost all of them have a way to get past Blissey: Crocune and SubCM Jirachi can set up on it, Starmie (and previously Latias) can trick it a scarf, and Gengar can Pain Split. Magnezone is valuable for its ability to trap steels, and Heatran is easily the only usable defensive fire type. Meanwhile, Pokemon like Zapdos, Lucario, and Roserade who can't get past Blissey with special attacks are forced to take a different role.
To the people who think ScarfCress doesn't count as a counter since it is "unsuitable for the metagame", Breloom's only true counter is a heavily Defence-EV'd Hypno. Which one of the two is more suitable for the metagame?
I think the best point the OP mentioned is the fact that the current banning system does not take into account defensive pokemon as much. When you look at all the special attackers in OU, you'll see that almost all of them have a way to get past Blissey: Crocune and SubCM Jirachi can set up on it, Starmie (and previously Latias) can trick it a scarf, and Gengar can Pain Split. Magnezone is valuable for its ability to trap steels, and Heatran is easily the only usable defensive fire type. Meanwhile, Pokemon like Zapdos, Lucario, and Roserade who can't get past Blissey with special attacks are forced to take a different role.
Can we stop bringing up ScarfCresselia? Its a shitty set that nobody would ever use. Want to know why?
I am a Choice Scarf Cresellia! I am an uncounterable set!!!! FEAR ME!
Oh shit! a scarfed psychic mon. that will def outrun me and be able to ohko me with psychic! i better let someone else handle this!
PSYCHIC'D!
Psych fool. My trainer already called me back. You're in for a suprise.
YEAH! MY TURN! RAWR!!! Oh crap. It used psychic. lololol stupid moon duck doesn't realize im immune to that weak stuff. looks like trainer his trainer has to call him back and you know what THAT means.
Shit!!! NO NO NO NO!!! Please don't pursuit!!!!!!! no! why did i listen to those people in that thread who said i was uncounterable, when dark types exist and have access to pursuit.
Thats pretty much the scenario and how it plays out. I was going to make a picture of tyranitar wearing wise glasses, but that would probably be overkill.
Thats pretty much the scenario and how it plays out. I was going to make a picture of tyranitar wearing wise glasses, but that would probably be overkill.
Blissey is not the end-all wall. Stop exaggerating. There are tons of things (things which aren't even considered walls) that are 2HKOed by neutral attacks. And requiring 2 physical hits to KO it doesn't make it insurmountable. I would expect all Infernapes to carry Life Orb. If you rely on Knock Off to keep your Blissey alive, you shouldn't expect to have your Blissey around very long.
And no one cares if ScarfCress counters Mence, because no one will use it, just like no one carries Hypno just to counter Breloom. And Hypno probably IS more suitable for the metagame, as it can support with status, wish, and screens, while ScarfCress is wasted by utilizing its 85 base speed and 75 base SpA. They're both too situational to use; people don't use counters anymore because you can't counter everything.
And no one cares if ScarfCress counters Mence, because no one will use it, just like no one carries Hypno just to counter Breloom. And Hypno probably IS more suitable for the metagame, as it can support with status, wish, and screens, while ScarfCress is wasted by utilizing its 85 base speed and 75 base SpA. They're both too situational to use; people don't use counters anymore because you can't counter everything.
That's how it plays out for Hypno. Again, which one is a better counter? Cress to Mence, or Hypno to Breloom?I am a 252/252 Bold Hypno! I am the only true counter to Breloom!
Oh shit! A Hypno who can't be Spored and OHKO's with Psychic! i better let someone else handle this!
PSYCHIC'D!
Psych fool. My trainer already called me back. You're in for a suprise.
YEAH! MY TURN! RAWR!!! Oh crap. It used psychic. lololol stupid pedophile doesn't realize im immune to that weak stuff. looks like trainer his trainer has to call him back and you know what THAT means.
Shit!!! NO NO NO NO!!! Please don't pursuit!!!!!!! no! why did i listen to those people in that thread who said i was more of a counter than cress?
Btw: Scarfcress counters Mence. That's the whole point here.
^ Well, Hypno could throw up a Reflect, use Wish, and paralyze Tyranitar in that situation.
That's not the reason why Cress is a bad thing to scarf (Tyranitar is only in 1/5 games anyway). Cress is a bad thing to scarf because its attacking stats suck, and if you aren't hitting something 4x supereffectively it won't do much.
That's not the reason why Cress is a bad thing to scarf (Tyranitar is only in 1/5 games anyway). Cress is a bad thing to scarf because its attacking stats suck, and if you aren't hitting something 4x supereffectively it won't do much.
I think the original point of bringing up ScarfCress was to show that Mence did have a counter. We are, after all, discussing the difference between a Defensive pokemon like Blissey and an offensive pokemon like Mence. I only brought up Scarfcress again when Away said that Mence has no "100%" counter. It does.
Anyways, I would argue that Blissey is the end-all Special wall that people make it out to be. When all but three special attackers in OU can only get past Blissey by Tricking it (which is dangerous for the likes of Starmie and Rotom due to T-tar), Exploding on it, or carrying a Physical attack, then I would say that Blissey does a damn good job of walling special attacks.
Anyways, I would argue that Blissey is the end-all Special wall that people make it out to be. When all but three special attackers in OU can only get past Blissey by Tricking it (which is dangerous for the likes of Starmie and Rotom due to T-tar), Exploding on it, or carrying a Physical attack, then I would say that Blissey does a damn good job of walling special attacks.
I originally posted this in the thread "The Support Clause" but I think it has relevance here:
"Blissey is not broken because the other half of the moves completely destroy her. I would venture to guess that sweeps from allowing a physical sweeper to set up on her occur just as frequently as walling special attackers to death, meaning that her potentially Clause-worthy virtues are balanced by her glaring flaws. Though she can effectively wall a large part of the metagame, it is always the same specific part, and she stands no chance against the other. On the other hand, things like Lugia or Giratina have outstanding all around defenses, meaning they can be made to wall different things depending on the set. I think this definitely must be considered in any argument using the Uber Clauses.
Also, she does not affect the viability of special attackers. Of the top ten from June, four were special attackers (Heatran, Gengar, Rotom-A, and Starmie), two were primarily mixed (Salamence and Infernape), and another could go either way (Jirachi). This is in fact equal to the number of physical attackers in the top ten (Scizor, Tyranitar, Gyarados and Metagross), but Tyranitar can and does make effective use of special attacks too. Clearly, physical/special diversity is alive and well.
So, Blissey is Suspect by neither Clause nor Diversity arguments."
"Blissey is not broken because the other half of the moves completely destroy her. I would venture to guess that sweeps from allowing a physical sweeper to set up on her occur just as frequently as walling special attackers to death, meaning that her potentially Clause-worthy virtues are balanced by her glaring flaws. Though she can effectively wall a large part of the metagame, it is always the same specific part, and she stands no chance against the other. On the other hand, things like Lugia or Giratina have outstanding all around defenses, meaning they can be made to wall different things depending on the set. I think this definitely must be considered in any argument using the Uber Clauses.
Also, she does not affect the viability of special attackers. Of the top ten from June, four were special attackers (Heatran, Gengar, Rotom-A, and Starmie), two were primarily mixed (Salamence and Infernape), and another could go either way (Jirachi). This is in fact equal to the number of physical attackers in the top ten (Scizor, Tyranitar, Gyarados and Metagross), but Tyranitar can and does make effective use of special attacks too. Clearly, physical/special diversity is alive and well.
So, Blissey is Suspect by neither Clause nor Diversity arguments."
I am assuming you are trolling? (o)___(x)
The idea of the defense-centered metagame is interesting. I've taken part in the UU tiering and kept an eye on the OU suspect test, too. One thing I've noticed is that it's very difficult to have defensive suspects. The only one we've really had is Cresselia, and even then the CM set had elements of being an offensive suspect.
Part of the difficulty is the fact that, unlike offensive Pokemon, forcing out defensive Pokemon isn't really countering them. After all, once Blissey has stopped your Empoleon and forced it out, it's done its job and no longer needs to be on the field. As such, your Machamp forcing it out isn't really all that wonderful, as Blissey had already accomplished its task. Of course, if you instead bring in Tyranitar and Pursuit her, then you've done a good job of countering her, as she'll have difficulty coming in again. So, a defensive Pokemon isn't countered by forcing it out; it's countered by breaking it as a wall. The ease by which a wall can be broken is harder to judge than the ease by which an offensive Pokemon sweeps through a team, which is where the true difficulty in judging a defensive Pokemon lies.
Because of this, it really does seem like we focus on banning offensive and support Pokemon until the tier's walls can reasonably handle them. Gallade was banned from UU because it tore up stall, even though offense really didn't have too much trouble with its meager 80 base speed and low defense. The only wall that's ever been banned is Cresselia, and that was because there were very few Pokemon in UU, if any, that could reliably break her.
So, in conclusion, the bias towards bans of offensive Pokemon rather than defensive ones likely stems from the fact that there are simply more and better offensive Pokemon than defensive ones. If we dropped Lugia or Giratina-A into OU, then we might see some defensive bans.
Part of the difficulty is the fact that, unlike offensive Pokemon, forcing out defensive Pokemon isn't really countering them. After all, once Blissey has stopped your Empoleon and forced it out, it's done its job and no longer needs to be on the field. As such, your Machamp forcing it out isn't really all that wonderful, as Blissey had already accomplished its task. Of course, if you instead bring in Tyranitar and Pursuit her, then you've done a good job of countering her, as she'll have difficulty coming in again. So, a defensive Pokemon isn't countered by forcing it out; it's countered by breaking it as a wall. The ease by which a wall can be broken is harder to judge than the ease by which an offensive Pokemon sweeps through a team, which is where the true difficulty in judging a defensive Pokemon lies.
Because of this, it really does seem like we focus on banning offensive and support Pokemon until the tier's walls can reasonably handle them. Gallade was banned from UU because it tore up stall, even though offense really didn't have too much trouble with its meager 80 base speed and low defense. The only wall that's ever been banned is Cresselia, and that was because there were very few Pokemon in UU, if any, that could reliably break her.
So, in conclusion, the bias towards bans of offensive Pokemon rather than defensive ones likely stems from the fact that there are simply more and better offensive Pokemon than defensive ones. If we dropped Lugia or Giratina-A into OU, then we might see some defensive bans.
Well, that is subjective enough. ;)
That's all I wanted to point out: The main reason for banning stuff is because people do not enjoy it. Of course, there usually is some correlation between how good a pokemon is and how much people enjoy it. But there usually is no causation between this.
That's because there are other things people like or do not like aside from objective power. Some examples:
1. People do obviously not like to ban moves. Otherwise, SR would be the first candidate for banning, probably. From a theoretical viewpoint, there is nothing speaking against banning single moves. But I must say, I would not feel right about banning a move either.
2. People do kinda like the set of Pokemon Nintendo uses. If it was ALL about making an enjoyable metagame, the approach smogon takes is flawed: We basically take SOME random set of bans and then delete or add add few. But it could as well be that the most enjoyable metagame actually is far away from all the metagames we can reach through that process. And I've read people saying that LittleCup is the metagame they enjoy the most. But still, people seemed to like even Salamence-OU more than LC.
Also, towards this whole Blissey discussion (again):
No one who has actually played Pokemon would seriously suggest to ban Blissey. It's just teh best example for the following fact:
There are single Pokemon with such an influence on the metagame that they could be called "defining factors of the metagame" _without_ being broken.
I need to stress that because some people like to use flawed logic to defend bans (when all the can/need to say is "It's more fun that way").
Also, no one in their right mind would argue that Blissey is not a very good pokemon. It's existence influences every special sweeper in the game. It's game-defining and has ever been. (That's also why it musn't be banned.)
Another example for the phenomon above would be Scizor: It's existence alone caused a shift in the metagame and some frail attackers to disappear. Nobody should deny that Scizor is a game-defining force. Also, it is NOT broken in any way.