-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
RSE Baton Pass
- Thread starter imperfectluck
- Start date
I'm just posting to say that I don't think we should be making any sort of official retroactive ban on Baton Pass. This is several years after the fact, and there is no point to doing such a thing. As I've said throughout this thread, Baton Pass is not broken, just currently unhealthy for the meta. I will illustrate what I mean by this in this post.
In supporting this Ingrain Smeargle ban, I support it for this rendition of this tournament only. I believe that after all this is said and done, BP will not be particularly hard to integrate into the metagame, as it is not inherently broken. Yes, it does require an explicit check, and is as a rule extremely unforgiving, but so are DDTar, Curselax, Heracross and many other iconic ADV threats. It's the nature of Baton Pass which makes it so ridiculously hard to beat if you don't have one of those counters (as opposed to those three above, who can feasibly be muscled through or critted down), which makes not being prepared for it so unhealthy for our competitively-natured meta. My reasoning behind not allowing it in this tournament is that it's not healthy for the meta as it stands, because it has not had time to be integrated explicitly into the meta. I hope (and believe) that in the future, Baton Pass would not be such an issue once we get over this honor code that seems to be a common notion. As it stands, we're simply not over it, which is what makes a temporary ban so feasible for a highly competitive setting that will involve the entire community, not a permanent ban.
Additionally, the precedent that making this permanent would be setting for retroactive tweaking is something that there's no need for Smogon to jump into right now. Those metagames are so fun for many because they are frozen, static metagames where people don't have to learn as much: they can be competitive just by reading old warstories and analyses. What worked when DP came out will still be working today, because the meta stopped advancing. If we are to alter that, we certainly should not approach it with our current mindset, and definitely should not do it while the twotone gen's ban policy is such an issue.
This really segways into what I would believe would be a good topic for us to decide on before we do make decisions on any permanent ban: the ban policy in general. I won't recap the "Lifting the Burden of the Rulemaker" and "Banning in Gen 5" threads here, but suffice to say, we as a community should determine what our objective point for metagame formation is overall, and especially for the current generation, before we tweak retroactively. However, overall that goes outside the scope of this post, and I only bring it up in closing as support for my point. I don't mean to start any sort of "retro tweaking debate" here, but I do think the larger issue of retro tweaking in general holds this thread inside it, and should be addressed in the future, once this tournament is no longer the scope for this debate and future retroactive debates.
But to reiterate my point: Ingrain Smeagle should be banned ONLY from this tour, not on any merit of brokenness, but because as a whole, it is unhealthy for the competitiveness of the metagame, largely due to the mindset that BP shouldn't be used that seems to be in place. I never really understood that to be an explicit "honor code", but now that I look back at the state of the ADV game, it would explain why BP is not integrated into the meta. That makes this "mental block" of BP the main thing to overcome once this tour is over, to prevent any sort of permanent retroactive ban from taking place.
(I will recap why BP is not broken if you really want me to, but at this point, anyone who has been playing on ladder should know by now that BP is breakable if you know what you're doing and are ready for it.)
In supporting this Ingrain Smeargle ban, I support it for this rendition of this tournament only. I believe that after all this is said and done, BP will not be particularly hard to integrate into the metagame, as it is not inherently broken. Yes, it does require an explicit check, and is as a rule extremely unforgiving, but so are DDTar, Curselax, Heracross and many other iconic ADV threats. It's the nature of Baton Pass which makes it so ridiculously hard to beat if you don't have one of those counters (as opposed to those three above, who can feasibly be muscled through or critted down), which makes not being prepared for it so unhealthy for our competitively-natured meta. My reasoning behind not allowing it in this tournament is that it's not healthy for the meta as it stands, because it has not had time to be integrated explicitly into the meta. I hope (and believe) that in the future, Baton Pass would not be such an issue once we get over this honor code that seems to be a common notion. As it stands, we're simply not over it, which is what makes a temporary ban so feasible for a highly competitive setting that will involve the entire community, not a permanent ban.
Additionally, the precedent that making this permanent would be setting for retroactive tweaking is something that there's no need for Smogon to jump into right now. Those metagames are so fun for many because they are frozen, static metagames where people don't have to learn as much: they can be competitive just by reading old warstories and analyses. What worked when DP came out will still be working today, because the meta stopped advancing. If we are to alter that, we certainly should not approach it with our current mindset, and definitely should not do it while the twotone gen's ban policy is such an issue.
This really segways into what I would believe would be a good topic for us to decide on before we do make decisions on any permanent ban: the ban policy in general. I won't recap the "Lifting the Burden of the Rulemaker" and "Banning in Gen 5" threads here, but suffice to say, we as a community should determine what our objective point for metagame formation is overall, and especially for the current generation, before we tweak retroactively. However, overall that goes outside the scope of this post, and I only bring it up in closing as support for my point. I don't mean to start any sort of "retro tweaking debate" here, but I do think the larger issue of retro tweaking in general holds this thread inside it, and should be addressed in the future, once this tournament is no longer the scope for this debate and future retroactive debates.
But to reiterate my point: Ingrain Smeagle should be banned ONLY from this tour, not on any merit of brokenness, but because as a whole, it is unhealthy for the competitiveness of the metagame, largely due to the mindset that BP shouldn't be used that seems to be in place. I never really understood that to be an explicit "honor code", but now that I look back at the state of the ADV game, it would explain why BP is not integrated into the meta. That makes this "mental block" of BP the main thing to overcome once this tour is over, to prevent any sort of permanent retroactive ban from taking place.
(I will recap why BP is not broken if you really want me to, but at this point, anyone who has been playing on ladder should know by now that BP is breakable if you know what you're doing and are ready for it.)
Never said it was. If Ninjask Subs twice before Baton Passing on the third turn, that's about a 49% chance of going first at least once. Going towards 60% if it Subs three times (which is generally all that's needed to allow the slower BP mons like Umbreon to outpace Aerodactyl and Jolteon). However, it does pretty much give you a decent chance of _winning the match_ for next to no opportunity cost. I would still run a good anti-Baton Pass Pokémon alongside, though.
I disagree with Hip that anything chance based that pretty much has to happen in the first turns can be a fantastic counter to anything. How it is remotely similar to Fire Blasting a Scizor, I'll never know.
I did my maths wrong, but its still a 60% chance of beating most ninjasks. I always thought 60% was underrated as a likelihood of victory.
The point is, that even if BP is not what we want in a metagame, if you want to, you can just counter it. You dont have to lose to BP if you dont want to. Yes, this may make your team more vulnerable to some teams without BP, but it doesnt need to be significantly. My teams were made significantly shittier in a lot of instances by the inclusion of Swampert, but I included pert because otherwise I lose a lot of very boring battles to DD TTar or mence.
A QC Zapdos with Tbolt, HP, Roar, filler will single handedly beat almost any BP team (actually it hardly even needs the QC). Basically you leave them needing to pass nothing more than a couple of CMs and speed to their sweeper, and hope it can take out your team. If you dont ch them before that.
If I was interested in playing advance at the moment I would be hoping that all my opponents would use BP, because I would win. I really like winning.
Have a nice day.
The point is, that even if BP is not what we want in a metagame, if you want to, you can just counter it. You dont have to lose to BP if you dont want to. Yes, this may make your team more vulnerable to some teams without BP, but it doesnt need to be significantly. My teams were made significantly shittier in a lot of instances by the inclusion of Swampert, but I included pert because otherwise I lose a lot of very boring battles to DD TTar or mence.
A QC Zapdos with Tbolt, HP, Roar, filler will single handedly beat almost any BP team (actually it hardly even needs the QC). Basically you leave them needing to pass nothing more than a couple of CMs and speed to their sweeper, and hope it can take out your team. If you dont ch them before that.
If I was interested in playing advance at the moment I would be hoping that all my opponents would use BP, because I would win. I really like winning.
Have a nice day.
There's a post in the suspect testing thread I agree with saying "this is a solution in search of a problem". Has Baton Pass completely dominated any Smogon ADV tournaments in the past? I can't remember any, and I really doubt that it would have dominated the tour, and I still doubt it will dominate the tour even in spite of this thread. Basically I'm wondering what the point of a suspect test is, when the main objection to allowing BP isn't that "it's broken", but rather "it's unsporting". We don't have a suspect test process for banning unsporting tactics, which means that the current test going on isn't going to give us anything useful.
I just recently was pointed to the probable reason why the BP players who are doing explicitly well with Baton Pass are doing so: Mekkah's guide to Baton Passing in ADV.
Not to say that their playing ability doesn't also contribute (Earthworm), but on the whole, this outlines everything I was saying about why Baton Pass is unhealthy for the meta. Not to beat a dead horse, however, this is pretty compelling evidence for anyone who thinks that Baton Pass is a nonissue. It also contains a pretty comprehensive checks and counters section, for anyone who thinks it is broken (probably nobody).
Now, that said, the way things are progressing, I have my doubts as to whether or not we still actually need to take BP out of the equation for the tour (see my last post for why I think we should), considering that all one has to do to be prepared/make one that doesn't suck is to read that. If we make this a more publicly known document, I think it will completely eliminate the need for a Baton Pass tempban. Once the people are educated, they'll be better able to counter Baton Pass, and it will be less likely to completely destroy the average tourgoer, since everyone will be armed with easily integrative checks and counters for the style.
Not to say that their playing ability doesn't also contribute (Earthworm), but on the whole, this outlines everything I was saying about why Baton Pass is unhealthy for the meta. Not to beat a dead horse, however, this is pretty compelling evidence for anyone who thinks that Baton Pass is a nonissue. It also contains a pretty comprehensive checks and counters section, for anyone who thinks it is broken (probably nobody).
Now, that said, the way things are progressing, I have my doubts as to whether or not we still actually need to take BP out of the equation for the tour (see my last post for why I think we should), considering that all one has to do to be prepared/make one that doesn't suck is to read that. If we make this a more publicly known document, I think it will completely eliminate the need for a Baton Pass tempban. Once the people are educated, they'll be better able to counter Baton Pass, and it will be less likely to completely destroy the average tourgoer, since everyone will be armed with easily integrative checks and counters for the style.