np: OU Suspect Testing Round 3 - So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

[RaRaRabbit]

I'm curious how the auto-weather (namely Drizzle) wasn't considered ban-worthy.

Because only 30% of the voters voted to ban it in the last voting process (yesterday).

Maybe I should reiterate that sentence: The majority of qualified voters chose to not have drizzle banned. Thus, for this suspect and voting round, and for whatever their reasoning, the decision has been made that Drizzle is not ban worthy yet.

Not to say it won't be SUSPECT worthy for next round though, I would assume. We won't know until the next suspect round if people are going to vote it off or not.

 

[StarmanXL]

So how come we're considering brightpowder/lax incense here uncompetitive and not other hax items like quick claw and focus band which add a similar element of luck to the game that can potentially completely screw over the better player? Also, if some of us suspect that the abilities Sand Veil and Snow Cloak are inherently uncompetitive why do we not assume the same for the ability Super Luck, which increases the chances of luck most find uncompetitive?

Not trying to bitch at anyone (never used these items so I don't give a rat's ass if they get the boot or not) but it seems to me that if we're gonna get rid of two hax items on the principle that they're uncompetitive and add nothing to the metagame we might as well go the whole hog and prohibit the rest of said hax items.

 

[SHUCKLE MAN]

So how come we're considering brightpowder/lax incense here uncompetitive and not other hax items like quick claw and focus band which add a similar element of luck to the game that can potentially completely screw over the better player? Also, if some of us suspect that the abilities Sand Veil and Snow Cloak are inherently uncompetitive why do we not assume the same for the ability Super Luck, which increases the chances of luck most find uncompetitive?

Not trying to bitch at anyone (never used these items so I don't give a rat's ass if they get the boot or not) but it seems to me that if we're gonna get rid of two hax items on the principle that they're uncompetitive and add nothing to the metagame we might as well go the whole hog and prohibit the rest of said hax items.

I think they were banned because of evasion clause. The other types of luck don't fit under that.

I agree with you though, I don't really think they should've been banned, but nobody ever used them anyway, so I don't really care.

 

[Lorenz]

Because only 30% of the voters voted to ban it in the last voting process (yesterday).

Maybe I should reiterate that sentence: The majority of qualified voters chose to not have drizzle banned. Thus, for this suspect and voting round, and for whatever their reasoning, the decision has been made that Drizzle is not ban worthy yet.

Not to say it won't be SUSPECT worthy for next round though, I would assume. We won't know until the next suspect round if people are going to vote it off or not.

Only 30%? The way I saw most of the posts go it sounded like at least Drizzle was gonna get the boot. I may not agree with the non-ban but ah well, I'll still play either way.

 

[RaRaRabbit]

Only 30%? The way I saw most of the posts go it sounded like at least Drizzle was gonna get the boot. I may not agree with the non-ban but ah well, I'll still play either way.

Only 41 out of 43 votes have been submitted, but all the results are set in stone already. Here are the results of this vote:

Bright Powder + Lax Incense: 33 Ban, 5 Do Not Ban, 3 Abstain (86.8% Ban)
Drizzle: 14 Ban, 25 Do Not Ban, 2 Abstain (35.9% Ban)
Drought: 8 Ban, 29 Do Not Ban, 4 Abstain (21.6% Ban)

Neither of the weather abilities hit even a simple majority, so they're staying unbanned. However, apparently a huge super majority of you hate evasion items, so Bright Powder and Lax Incense will be banned under Evasion Clause from here on out! I'll put up the Pokemon Vote thread shortly.

Quoted from the voting thread.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102472&page=2


So yeah, about 35% for Drizzle, and 20% for Drought.

 

[Thorhammer]

So how come we're considering brightpowder/lax incense here uncompetitive and not other hax items like quick claw and focus band which add a similar element of luck to the game that can potentially completely screw over the better player? Also, if some of us suspect that the abilities Sand Veil and Snow Cloak are inherently uncompetitive why do we not assume the same for the ability Super Luck, which increases the chances of luck most find uncompetitive?

Not trying to bitch at anyone (never used these items so I don't give a rat's ass if they get the boot or not) but it seems to me that if we're gonna get rid of two hax items on the principle that they're uncompetitive and add nothing to the metagame we might as well go the whole hog and prohibit the rest of said hax items.

This has been answered far more than enough times earlier in the thread. No one is opposed to such bans; we simply aren't focusing on them because they're different and irrelevant.

 

[alexwolf]

So how come we're considering brightpowder/lax incense here uncompetitive and not other hax items like quick claw and focus band which add a similar element of luck to the game that can potentially completely screw over the better player? Also, if some of us suspect that the abilities Sand Veil and Snow Cloak are inherently uncompetitive why do we not assume the same for the ability Super Luck, which increases the chances of luck most find uncompetitive?

Not trying to bitch at anyone (never used these items so I don't give a rat's ass if they get the boot or not) but it seems to me that if we're gonna get rid of two hax items on the principle that they're uncompetitive and add nothing to the metagame we might as well go the whole hog and prohibit the rest of said hax items.

the reason is because they are banned as an extention of the evation clause.
gaining a free turn is the most bad and uncompetitive form of hax one could encounter in a fight.
quick claw and focus band,and scope lens don't give you a free turn without drawbacks...you might play first or survive an attack that you shoudn't or score a lucky crit but all these situations are worse than gaining a free turn...what do you prefer?your opponent missing or you playing first?surviving a hit with 1 hp left or not getting hit at all?your hit criting or his attack missing?
these items were banned 'cause they introduce the worst form of hax to the game(misses through evasion raise)!

 

[masterful]

I'm just curious to know why we are banning Brightpowder when Sand Veil has double the effect to make Garchomp broken. Let's face it, nothing else with Sand Veil is broken, so why don't we just ban Garchomp?

Because then people can't make the argument that it's about evasion clause, even though a 10 or 20% miss chance is far from broken and should not be banned whatsoever.

 

[alexwolf]

Yeah, because teams of rapidash, flaeron, heatmor, and moltres are totally tearing up the ladders under the power of drought ninetales.

The viable fire abusers drought gets isn't anywhere near as many as people say they are. No offense meant, but I find it odd that people mention drought's MANY abusers when there really aren't a lot of viable ones. Give me logs of Solar Power Sunflora sweeping teams and I'll admit that I'm wrong (this is hypocritical since I own such a log, but my opponent was pretty bad to be honest).

arcanine,shandera,volcarona,blaziken ,victini,typhlosion,charizard and hihidaruma seem a lot to me...

 

[Thorhammer]

Because then people can't make the argument that it's about evasion clause, even though a 10 or 20% miss chance is far from broken and should not be banned whatsoever.

85% of the voters decided that Brightpowder and Lax Incense, two items known to not be broken, should be banned. That's far more than even a supermajority vote. Something does not have to be broken to be banned, just uncompetitive. This is an official decision, and not one that is going to be overturned anytime soon, if ever. Stop declaring the opposite to be true.

 

[StarmanXL]

This has been answered far more than enough times earlier in the thread. No one is opposed to such bans; we simply aren't focusing on them because they're different and irrelevant.

In which case someone should nominate them next round (I highly doubt I'll ever hit requirements) and then ban 'em so that when the inevitable shitstorm hits we can at least say, "We are consistent with our decisions!"

Anyway, enough of that. I'm kinda surprised that Reuniclus and Thundurus got enough nominations to be voted on but Tornadus and Landorus didn't. We've already discussed how Tornadus is a monster (and I believe someone has argued the merits of a last-ditch priority Tailwind over a last-ditch priority Twave) yet it is not on the chopping block with its fellow Drizzle abuser. Same with Landorus and its partner in crime Excadrill, especially given that people have made many claims that the former is still too strong even with fixing its ability.

 

[masterful]

85% of the voters decided that Brightpowder and Lax Incense, two items known to not be broken, should be banned. That's far more than even a supermajority vote. Something does not have to be broken to be banned, just uncompetitive. This is an official decision, and not one that is going to be overturned anytime soon, if ever. Stop declaring the opposite to be true.

Wow man. If being uncompetitive was all something needed to be to be banned, then a quarter of items, moves, abilities, and mechanics of pokemon would be banned. That's just absurd. If we do not ban because something is broken, then we deviate from the game so much that we essentially create our own. THERE WILL ALWAYS BE LUCK IN POKEMON until we ban every bit of hax in the game, at which point it will no longer be pokemon that we are playing, but a new game by smogon creation. What's the point of this being a competitive POKEMON community if we feel it is our right to remove every aspect of the game that we do not like?

 

[Thorhammer]

Wow man. If being uncompetitive was all something needed to be to be banned, then a quarter of items, moves, abilities, and mechanics of pokemon would be banned. That's just absurd. If we do not ban because something is broken, then we deviate from the game so much that we essentially create our own. THERE WILL ALWAYS BE LUCK IN POKEMON until we ban every bit of hax in the game, at which point it will no longer be pokemon that we are playing, but a new game by smogon creation. What's the point of this being a competitive POKEMON community if we feel it is our right to remove every aspect of the game that we do not like?

Not everything involving the slightest bit of luck is uncompetitive.

 

[masterful]

Not everything involving the slightest bit of luck is uncompetitive.

But apparently a 10% chance is FAR from slight. How many times have you lost because you used a 100% acc move on a Brightpowder poke (wihtout Sand Veil or Snow Cloak) and it missed? And how does that compare to the number of times you won because somebody didn't realize that Lfe Orb or Lefties is a much better item on almost everything?

 

[Benlisted]

Jesus, the amount some of us actually care about something as minor as Brightpowder amazes me. It just really does not matter.

Anyway, I'm surprised by the amount of mons that got through nominations, especially considering that the meta overall seems pretty balanced, to me anyway.

Latios and Excadrill being nominated for what, the third, fourth time just makes me sigh - it's like we're just waiting for the right voter pool to get rid of them. Makes me wonder if we should implement something which stops things being repeatedly nominated unless a big development affecting them comes into the meta (like a new set, movepool change, checks being banned etc), just to prevent this.

Blaziken and Thundurus seem in most danger to me, being somewhat of the poster children for their respective weathers currently.

 

[Meru]

For the ten millionth time, we're not waiting for the right voter pool to ban certain pokemon! They just might not have been broken in previous circumstances but may now be proven to be broken in current circumstances. The metagame changed, so they might have gotten more powerful, to the point of broken-ness.

If we didn't re-evaluate OU mons in different metagames, we wouldn't have even unbanned the Gen 4 Ubers.

 

[Thorhammer]

For the ten millionth time, we're not waiting for the right voter pool to ban certain pokemon! They just might not have been broken in previous circumstances but may now be proven to be broken in current circumstances. The metagame changed, so they might have gotten more powerful, to the point of broken-ness.

If we didn't re-evaluate OU mons in different metagames, we wouldn't have even unbanned the Gen 4 Ubers.

Circumstances have changed little. Manaphy and Swift Swim + Drizzle certainly had a substantial impact on the metagame, but unless someone can give a good reason why Pokemon that have already been voted OU would be changed so much by the removal of those factors that they would cause them to be uber when they were not before, they should not be permitted to be nominated again.

 

[Arc Tech]

Yeah, while they may never had any majority, the metagame has been changing pretty significantly each round. If nothing was being banned every round but they were being nominated continuously, then you'd have a point.

The first round had the powerful ex-Ubers, who would pretty much be able to keep most in their places, and competed with drizzle boosted sweepers in power- only without the rain requirement.

The second round had drizzle boosted sweepers, which were superior to other weathers (Excadrill) meaning without them the other weathers would have less checks and be more powerful.

The metagame has been changing pretty significantly with each round. This round to next probably won't change that much- the only bans which may be are Blaziken, Thunderus, and Latios (I'd be shocked if Excadrill was banned, and even more so for rank).

 

[IcyMan28]

Circumstances have changed little. Manaphy and Swift Swim + Drizzle certainly had a substantial impact on the metagame, but unless someone can give a good reason why Pokemon that have already been voted OU would be changed so much by the removal of those factors that they would cause them to be uber when they were not before, they should not be permitted to be nominated again.

Yeah I'm really not seeing what has changed that people are still nominating Excadrill, Latios, and Reuniclus.

The swift swimmers did not check Excadrill, the presence of Drizzle did. Excadrill outruns the main three in any weather other than Rain. It also outran ScarfMin and below, so the exUbers, so really nothing has changed. None of its major checks have been banned, none of the other weathers have been banned, none of its counters are removed.

Reuniclus. It is checked by a decent range of threats from CBGross to Tyranitar to Scizor to Spiritomb. The metagame still outspeeds it and can revenge it even if it beats something, and if anything it has to deal with equal to or more powerful attacks than the likes of Ludicolo and Kingdra (see: Specs Tornadus, LO Starmie, NP Thundurus) still.

Latios is less hindered now that Kingdra and Kabutops can't revenge it, but that's about it. Steels are still great checks to Latios as they resist its STABs. And even though the original Drizzle trio may not be around, Starmie and the genies now rise to fill their place. It still has to deal with SpD Tar and Scizor, and is outrun by any Scarfer.

So I generally agree with you, Thorhammer. I don't believe there has been enough change to make their repeated nominations justified. The reasoning was sound last gen with all the suspects being so intertwined but that isnt as much the case this time. We need to be sure that rather than saying "oh the metagame has changed," we actually evaluate the changes relative to the suspects. Hopefully this voter pool wont be the one to send them off.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

This has been answered far more than enough times earlier in the thread. No one is opposed to such bans; we simply aren't focusing on them because they're different and irrelevant.

But... Quick Claw... going first... and Lefties being better for Sand Veil stalling...

 

[alphatron]

I don't think Latios and Excadrill are being constantly nominated again simply shows that the voters don't find the presence of those pokemon in this metagame fun, not broken.

Let's face it. Not every voter or nominator is a reasonable person who wants to work to get rid of what's broken. An ideal metagame could be one in which the pokemon that annoys you the most is removed so that things are more fun for you.

 

[masterful]

Circumstances have changed little. Manaphy and Swift Swim + Drizzle certainly had a substantial impact on the metagame, but unless someone can give a good reason why Pokemon that have already been voted OU would be changed so much by the removal of those factors that they would cause them to be uber when they were not before, they should not be permitted to be nominated again.

Hey man, just because something wasn't banned doesn't mean it shouldn't be. Ever heard of Salamence or Latias?

 

[shrang]

How so? We came to the conclusion that the only thing worth banning was bright powder? Thats a waste of effort? Did we not go through all this time TESTING? Did we not decide that rain/drought was not ban worthy, and come up with all the other ideas for suspects and etc?

We don't NEED to ban something to make a suspect round or a voting round not be a waste of effort. That sounds like we need to ban something to make what we did even worth it. And technically, what did we waste? Some time on a forum in which we nominated bright powder and voted for it? Because nothing else stood out as an immediate threat?

No. We didn't waste a damn thing. We discussed, we nominated, we concluded. We didn't waste time choosing bright powder. We just simply concluded that it was the only thing unfit for the meta in that voting round. And, for all that it matters, I would rather have THAT then spend an entire voting round banning a BUNCH of things due to a bad meta.

It's a waste of effort considering how much it did. It you do a ratio of even the slight effort of writing one more line of code to get it banned on how much it achieved, it is still huge (Small number/A very small number still is a large number). It's like Singapore's ban on chewing gum in the streets. While it really isn't a big deal and doesn't spend much effort to enforce, at the end of the day it is something completely trivial. If it's not broken, don't fix it.

85% of the voters decided that Brightpowder and Lax Incense, two items known to not be broken, should be banned. That's far more than even a supermajority vote. Something does not have to be broken to be banned, just uncompetitive. This is an official decision, and not one that is going to be overturned anytime soon, if ever. Stop declaring the opposite to be true.

It is an official decision, but it shows how nitpicky and ban-happy this place has "officially" become. If it's not broken, don't fix it. Why don't we ban stuff like Fire Stone or useless items? They're uncompetitive because they're useless. If it's uncompetitive, do we ban it? If we left Brightpowder/Lax Incense in, was it making the game any less playable than it is now? Not by any measurable amount. I guarantee you people would still complain about hax when we remove it. Again, it was a seriously pointless that achieved virtually nothing. Why waste the effort to achieve nothing? What's even more baffling is why we're not banning Sand Veil/Snow Cloak first. The logic of this place is absolutely astounding.

 

[TLK]

You have completely misinterpreted what uncompetitive means.

A fire stone is useless and not practical when making a good team, but it is not uncompetitive in the same way that Brightpowder is, so your analogy doesn't work at all.

Also, I don't care if they've avoided the ban twice now, I still want Latios gone. It's stupid, it is so versatile, but it's most popular set still 2hko's the entire game with the exception of 3 Pokemon. Yeah, that's not too powerful. What other Pokemon can 2HKO (and outspeed) every Pokemon in the metagame with the correct move choice? Blaziken also needs to go for reasons I've mentioned and others have gone into also.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Honestly banning brightpowder and sandveil seems just silly. But I am a huge fan of democracy, it doesn't matter what some "intellectuals" think its what the populace wants. We wouldn't have some scientists lead our countries becuase he is the smartest one around, and have his attority go unchallanged?