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Metagame Suspect Discussion - Baton Pass
- Thread starter macle
- Start date
- Status
No reason to not allow people to put in their thoughts about the suspect test.
TruSwagblu
Banned deucer.
1) Is Baton Pass broken?
Most definitely not, there are many (should be) common standard options, such as taunt, encore, etc. to stop Full BP, and even QuickPass. If you don't carry any of these moves you definitely should, if not because they help defeat BP, but that they are fantastic moves in general play. If you lose to BP, a lot of the time you didn't have anything to beat it (which is not a good idea), or you played bad in the beginning turns. Baton Pass is very beatable without forced to run weird, obscure, normally worthless things via simple already viable moves and mons such as Fletch, and especially tauntfoo.
2) Is Baton Pass making Little Cup not fun?
Baton Pass as it is hardly played, so it should have little to no negative imprint on LCers, and I'd encourage anyone (if there are any such people) who finds Full BP making LC not fun to get more practice/time in the tier, or to change their team to deal with it better.
3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring individuals from playing Little Cup?
I'd hope not, they'd have to be very unlucky on the ladder and very stubborn about changing their team, to be turned away from LC because of Full BP/Quickpass teams.
4) If there is a Baton Pass ban, what exactly are we banning?
If by some random chance BP was banned in some way, you could limit it to a mon or so, so that QuickPass is still playable. I'd assume most of the people who would have problems with BP probably have all their negative experience with full BP teams, and not QP.
I apologize if I didn't go in as depth as I should have, but so many extremely valid things *cough*LikeEverythingHeysupHasSaid*cough* have already been said that I need not repeat everything.
Edit: It's also like 2 AM here, should have waited until the morning, but whatever.
Most definitely not, there are many (should be) common standard options, such as taunt, encore, etc. to stop Full BP, and even QuickPass. If you don't carry any of these moves you definitely should, if not because they help defeat BP, but that they are fantastic moves in general play. If you lose to BP, a lot of the time you didn't have anything to beat it (which is not a good idea), or you played bad in the beginning turns. Baton Pass is very beatable without forced to run weird, obscure, normally worthless things via simple already viable moves and mons such as Fletch, and especially tauntfoo.
2) Is Baton Pass making Little Cup not fun?
Baton Pass as it is hardly played, so it should have little to no negative imprint on LCers, and I'd encourage anyone (if there are any such people) who finds Full BP making LC not fun to get more practice/time in the tier, or to change their team to deal with it better.
3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring individuals from playing Little Cup?
I'd hope not, they'd have to be very unlucky on the ladder and very stubborn about changing their team, to be turned away from LC because of Full BP/Quickpass teams.
4) If there is a Baton Pass ban, what exactly are we banning?
If by some random chance BP was banned in some way, you could limit it to a mon or so, so that QuickPass is still playable. I'd assume most of the people who would have problems with BP probably have all their negative experience with full BP teams, and not QP.
I apologize if I didn't go in as depth as I should have, but so many extremely valid things *cough*LikeEverythingHeysupHasSaid*cough* have already been said that I need not repeat everything.
Edit: It's also like 2 AM here, should have waited until the morning, but whatever.
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I don't quite follow your reasoning. For 1), if you make a mistake vs any team you should probably lose. BP is actually easier to recover against. 2) is a gross exaggeration, obviously, but also severely misguided even if you were to say 50%. If you have two good players, the person who's against BP will lead with something that doesn't lose to Torchic or Gothita which is 99% of the metagame (yes, I am ironically saying 99%; it's not actually 99%, it's just "a lot"). The only reason people think it's determined by lead match-ups is because that's when the idiot playing BP is going to make a mistake - not later in the game.
First of all, I got reqs using a team with 5 destiny bond users and Mienfoo and I threw in some BP here and there. It doesn't mean shit - they were both gimmicks.
Just because a team can win by severely outplaying an opponent, does not make it a serious team.
Does it not strike anyone else as telling that the pro BP nerf camp is not struggling to prove its broken - but they're struggling to prove it's a serious team?
idgi.
Goddess Briyella
Banned deucer.
I'm at work, so I can't say everything I want to say, but I do want to respond to some of the thoughts here.
I find Memento + Zigzagoon a million times more "not fun" to play against than this, but hey, it's beatable and is also something that must be considered when building teams, right? Even better, it doesn't auto-lose to SD Fletchling, Pawniard, Taunt Mienfoo (#1 usage), or Roar/Whirlwind.
I'm equally sure that a player decidedly loses to birdspam (especially SD Fletchling) without a Flying resist or two. Lacking a specific Baton Pass answer on its own does not guarantee a loss. Apply pressure, deal constant damage, and don't allow free turns, especially early in the game. Don't lead with your hazard setter if you see an obvious Baton Pass scheme or Torchic + slow physical sweeper in Team Preview; that's not hard.
Swords Dance Fletchling, a highly recognized threat even if Baton Pass were not considered, 6-0es full Baton Pass as teams of that nature lay claim to zero Flying resists. Strong attackers and users of Knock Off greatly pressure Baton Pass teams. Just about any user of Shell Smash punishes Torchic setup from the very beginning, and the Water/Rock ones are additionally extremely well-matched against Torchic. Sticky Web causes a Speed drop every time the opponent passes to another teammate and Surskit additionally carries Haze as a common move. Even as far as common receivers of QuickPass go, Cranidos is weak to several offensive types and several really common forms of priority, Cubone is neutered by Knock Off, and so on.
I myself would never ever use full Baton Pass on any serious team, and that's not because of preference. It's because I like not automatically losing over half of my battles due to the strategy being so easily dealt with in this tier. Wanting to limit Baton Pass to only a few users of it only forces people who want to use Baton Pass to use the more effective version of it anyway, so I don't understand the desire to do this. If wanting to nerf full Baton Pass is mostly just an attempt to prevent ladder cancer, that would make more sense than actually saying it's worthy of a legitimate suspect.
I find Memento + Zigzagoon a million times more "not fun" to play against than this, but hey, it's beatable and is also something that must be considered when building teams, right? Even better, it doesn't auto-lose to SD Fletchling, Pawniard, Taunt Mienfoo (#1 usage), or Roar/Whirlwind.
Yea, I'm finding it difficult to take this suspect seriously myself lol
I'm pretty sure a player decidedly loses to Memento + Zigzagoon if they don't have something that can take a +6 Extreme Speed, meaning the team is forced to either keep their Archen in high health, make sure their Spritzee's Eviolite is not removed, get off some early- to mid-game shuffling the opponent through hazards, or preserve whatever their Normal resist is. Diglett and Cottonee are very fast users of Memento and Zigzagoon users will usually always have a Fighting-type like Timburr to deter blocking Memento with Pawniard.
I'm equally sure that a player decidedly loses to birdspam (especially SD Fletchling) without a Flying resist or two. Lacking a specific Baton Pass answer on its own does not guarantee a loss. Apply pressure, deal constant damage, and don't allow free turns, especially early in the game. Don't lead with your hazard setter if you see an obvious Baton Pass scheme or Torchic + slow physical sweeper in Team Preview; that's not hard.
Swords Dance Fletchling, a highly recognized threat even if Baton Pass were not considered, 6-0es full Baton Pass as teams of that nature lay claim to zero Flying resists. Strong attackers and users of Knock Off greatly pressure Baton Pass teams. Just about any user of Shell Smash punishes Torchic setup from the very beginning, and the Water/Rock ones are additionally extremely well-matched against Torchic. Sticky Web causes a Speed drop every time the opponent passes to another teammate and Surskit additionally carries Haze as a common move. Even as far as common receivers of QuickPass go, Cranidos is weak to several offensive types and several really common forms of priority, Cubone is neutered by Knock Off, and so on.
That's low ladder, and every tier has one of those. If wanting to prevent certain playstyles from deterring players on the low ladder from playing Little Cup is something you're concerned about, the best thing to do is suggest them some resource threads in the LC forum, because full Baton Pass is definitely not the only thing they're bummed about facing. People on the low ladder lose to everything, including the most gimmicky things you can imagine, because they bring Chikorita/Chimchar/Piplup teams. They lose to Nasty Plot + Swift Meowth if you bring it.
This statement I just bolded basically supports the idea that not preparing has its consequences and suggests nothing that sounds like logical reasoning to want to suspect something. The same thing happens when you face Fletchling without bringing a Fletchling check: you regret not having brought a Flying resist. You can't complain about having to face something if you don't prepare for it, but the difference here is that Fletchling is actually a legitimate threat to prepare for. Playing against Baton Pass really only requires not being an idiot by giving the opponent free setup turns (such as by leading with a hazard setter or something and not applying pressure like any decently smart player would) early on in the match.
Yea, having one or two mons with Baton Pass on a team, which is the nerf some people posting here seem to have in mind, is ironically more effective in the LC metagame at large than a full Baton Pass team. Everyone knows what Torchic does and everyone can recognize a Baton Pass team at Team Preview. SubPass Mienfoo is the best user of the move in my opinion because of its unpredictability and also its ability to set up Substitutes for free against Knock Off. Full Baton Pass is honestly much more of a liability/handicap to the player using it than anything else, because it literally auto-loses to so many popular things.
I myself would never ever use full Baton Pass on any serious team, and that's not because of preference. It's because I like not automatically losing over half of my battles due to the strategy being so easily dealt with in this tier. Wanting to limit Baton Pass to only a few users of it only forces people who want to use Baton Pass to use the more effective version of it anyway, so I don't understand the desire to do this. If wanting to nerf full Baton Pass is mostly just an attempt to prevent ladder cancer, that would make more sense than actually saying it's worthy of a legitimate suspect.
Are you for real? Even bad players know that you don't have to resort to unorthodox sets to easily deal with Baton Pass. The ways to beat Baton Pass are so bountiful in LC that it's not even funny. It's not difficult at all to incorporate something into a Little Cup team that deals with Baton Pass and also has other important uses even if Baton Pass were not taken into consideration.
^ This sums up everything that probably needs to be said as far as why Baton Pass is fine, and I wish I could click Like on this a thousand times. It's your own fault as a player if the reason you lose is because you mess up this many times.
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So I go to sleep and this thread gets posted.. Anyways here are my thoughts about BP, I understand that it ended up being too long but don't get intimidated of its length and try to read it n_n
1) Is Baton Pass broken?
This actually depends on three things: your team, the BP team, and who's using it and who's facing it:
If your team is a hyper offensive one that includes some few sweepers or is just some standard Voltturn team then you'll pressure the opponent who's using a BP team and you won't be having much of a hard time, if you have a Pokémon with Taunt/Encore such as Mienfoo and Cottonee, Pokémon that can use Haze, or a phazer such as Whirlwind Hippopotas then you won't be having a hard time either, it's pretty much just about the team matchups and it doesn't mean that you automatically lose if you lack some Pokémon that can play the roles that I've stated but you'll just have a harder time while facing it and you'll be forced to predict heavily and go through some annoying 50/50s which can be quite problematic and is the main reason why Baton Pass got suspected. Heysup, you say that if the team lacks one of those things that can deal with BP and you're forced to do the 50/50s then the team sucks but isn't being obliged to run one of those moves that won't have much of a use except for Baton Pass some kind of slight overcentralizion that led to restrict teambuild a little bit? Well, I understand that most LC teams if not all include some sweepers that can force the BP user and heavily pressure them in the first but these sweepers won't be successful all the time if they're physically oriented ones because BP teams usually lead with Torchic which can use Will-o-Wisp on them (even though this will be on the price of sacrificing a boosting move such as SD or Curse but it's still a better option tbh), render them kind of useless, and proceed with what it was going to do but once again not a lot of people will fall for that but it's still a possibility and it's something that happened to me and a lot of other people that tried that way, so having a sweeper isn't always the best BP check (free Flying/Fire Fletchling!) but there are still these other solutions that I stated and Will-o-Wisp isn't that of a common move on Torchic but tbh it should be used more.
Now to the BP team and how it can be deciding on how broken the tactic might be, this doesn't matter much because the BP chain teams include like the same four or five members but the last ones can be some Pokémon that can't use BP but have the job of dealing with the tactic's check such as Gothita which can deal with some mons that threaten the tactic's user such as Mienfoo, but like I said BP teams are usually the same.
Lastly there is the difference provided by the person that is using BP, if you give two different users one that has a decent competitive experience and that can predict well and not choke and another one that is new to the competitive scene then you'll have two different results even though they have the same team and face the same team that used by the same person as BP needs to concentrate and make the right decisions all of the them and play around the mons that can check the team's archetype constantly through the game, something that not a lot of people are able to. There is also the criterion of the person that is facing the team and that will be forced to make the right plays too especially if they lack an easy answer such as the ones I stated before and I'm pretty sure that this is the reason why a great LC player such as Heysup thinks that BP is fine while a lot of beginners in the LC room say that BP is broken and that they have a hard time to deal with it.
It's understandable that LC doesn't have a lot of great BP chain members as OU did as we don't have something that can play the roles of Scolipede (Torchic can run Curse but it isn't as good as Iron Defense but Torchic has its defensive typing) and Espeon which can sponge Taunt/Encore and the phazing moves while also being a great boosting moves received that can use Stored Power, we have Natu but BP+Magic Bounce is incompatible on it, well keep in mind that LC doesn't also have Talonflame nor Aegislash which was allowed in OU back then which were the best answers to BP. This leads us to think that BP in LC isn't as broken as it was in OU but it is slightly annoying to play against especially for new players.
2) Is Baton Pass making Little Cup not fun?
To be honest this actually depends on your team, like I said if you have some easy answers then you won't have a hard time but if you lack one then it'll be a frustrating experience that we all had some time. This causes us to think that BP isn't making LC not fun but just slightly restricts teambuilding.
3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring individuals from playing Little Cup?
Kinda, beginners are the ones that get annoyed by those much and even some experienced people do when they don't have the right matchup while facing it.
4) If there is a Baton Pass nerf, how exactly are we nerfing it?
To be honest nerfing Baton Pass will be the best solution as it'll fix the current floating problems caused by BP and also keep some of the tactics such as Torchpassing useful, so imo nerf it to be used by two users max in each team
Didn't say much in the last three questions because I figured that I'll be repeating what I said in the first question.
1) Is Baton Pass broken?
This actually depends on three things: your team, the BP team, and who's using it and who's facing it:
If your team is a hyper offensive one that includes some few sweepers or is just some standard Voltturn team then you'll pressure the opponent who's using a BP team and you won't be having much of a hard time, if you have a Pokémon with Taunt/Encore such as Mienfoo and Cottonee, Pokémon that can use Haze, or a phazer such as Whirlwind Hippopotas then you won't be having a hard time either, it's pretty much just about the team matchups and it doesn't mean that you automatically lose if you lack some Pokémon that can play the roles that I've stated but you'll just have a harder time while facing it and you'll be forced to predict heavily and go through some annoying 50/50s which can be quite problematic and is the main reason why Baton Pass got suspected. Heysup, you say that if the team lacks one of those things that can deal with BP and you're forced to do the 50/50s then the team sucks but isn't being obliged to run one of those moves that won't have much of a use except for Baton Pass some kind of slight overcentralizion that led to restrict teambuild a little bit? Well, I understand that most LC teams if not all include some sweepers that can force the BP user and heavily pressure them in the first but these sweepers won't be successful all the time if they're physically oriented ones because BP teams usually lead with Torchic which can use Will-o-Wisp on them (even though this will be on the price of sacrificing a boosting move such as SD or Curse but it's still a better option tbh), render them kind of useless, and proceed with what it was going to do but once again not a lot of people will fall for that but it's still a possibility and it's something that happened to me and a lot of other people that tried that way, so having a sweeper isn't always the best BP check (free Flying/Fire Fletchling!) but there are still these other solutions that I stated and Will-o-Wisp isn't that of a common move on Torchic but tbh it should be used more.
Now to the BP team and how it can be deciding on how broken the tactic might be, this doesn't matter much because the BP chain teams include like the same four or five members but the last ones can be some Pokémon that can't use BP but have the job of dealing with the tactic's check such as Gothita which can deal with some mons that threaten the tactic's user such as Mienfoo, but like I said BP teams are usually the same.
Lastly there is the difference provided by the person that is using BP, if you give two different users one that has a decent competitive experience and that can predict well and not choke and another one that is new to the competitive scene then you'll have two different results even though they have the same team and face the same team that used by the same person as BP needs to concentrate and make the right decisions all of the them and play around the mons that can check the team's archetype constantly through the game, something that not a lot of people are able to. There is also the criterion of the person that is facing the team and that will be forced to make the right plays too especially if they lack an easy answer such as the ones I stated before and I'm pretty sure that this is the reason why a great LC player such as Heysup thinks that BP is fine while a lot of beginners in the LC room say that BP is broken and that they have a hard time to deal with it.
It's understandable that LC doesn't have a lot of great BP chain members as OU did as we don't have something that can play the roles of Scolipede (Torchic can run Curse but it isn't as good as Iron Defense but Torchic has its defensive typing) and Espeon which can sponge Taunt/Encore and the phazing moves while also being a great boosting moves received that can use Stored Power, we have Natu but BP+Magic Bounce is incompatible on it, well keep in mind that LC doesn't also have Talonflame nor Aegislash which was allowed in OU back then which were the best answers to BP. This leads us to think that BP in LC isn't as broken as it was in OU but it is slightly annoying to play against especially for new players.
2) Is Baton Pass making Little Cup not fun?
To be honest this actually depends on your team, like I said if you have some easy answers then you won't have a hard time but if you lack one then it'll be a frustrating experience that we all had some time. This causes us to think that BP isn't making LC not fun but just slightly restricts teambuilding.
3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring individuals from playing Little Cup?
Kinda, beginners are the ones that get annoyed by those much and even some experienced people do when they don't have the right matchup while facing it.
4) If there is a Baton Pass nerf, how exactly are we nerfing it?
To be honest nerfing Baton Pass will be the best solution as it'll fix the current floating problems caused by BP and also keep some of the tactics such as Torchpassing useful, so imo nerf it to be used by two users max in each team
Didn't say much in the last three questions because I figured that I'll be repeating what I said in the first question.
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Apparently, if you keep offensive pressure or have a sexy VoltTurn team you have an assured win vs. Full BP chains. It's something I semi disagree with because as you said, you don't need an entire team dedicated to this playstyle when Pokemon like Fletchling can easily 6-0 full chains with ease.
Another thing I've noticed is that there really isn't any variation between full chains. As any experienced player will tell you, at least half of all full chains are: Mienfoo/Torchic/Togepi/Munna/Mime Jr./filler (I've seen a lot of things in this spot, but I think Goth is a little more common than the rest) This gives little variation to the full chain, and honestly some people take a paste of this team and throw it around (meaning that a good 25-30% of players using full chain are using the same exact team) so you should definitely have some experience and knowledge to beat it. It's like how a good chunk of OU players have a copy of Dennis' (idk the proper way to spell it like DeNniNseskek) Baton Pass team. The same Pokemon will beat this playstyle again and again (LO Pawn and SD fletch and Any phaser and Cottonee) so I can't see any reason as to nerf it.
Another thing, now that I said nerfing, is that you can't really nerf LC baton pass. In upper tiers, the less Pokemon with Baton Pass, the harder it is to win with a BP centric team (duh) however, in lower tiers, it wasn't the ability to string chains together effortlessly, but the ability to get boosts quickly from one pokemon to another that was tough to beat, and the same applies here in LC. for example, do you guys remember when Baton Pass was moved to BL3 from NU a while ago? Of course you don't. Baton Pass wasn't the broken part, Combusken was, since it had the ability to actually hurt stuff and pass with decent bulk. Torchic doesn't even hurt Pokemon with the SD boosts it gets, but it's ability to quickly pass boosts to a threatening sweeper is incredible. QuickPass is the more dangerous form of BP but I feel like it's not getting enough recognition other than everyone saying "yeah fullpass blah blah oh and quickpass too, but back to full pass" etc. Nerfing the amount of BP users per team will only limit the weaker form of BP based teams, while the stronger one avoids any nerf. The only way to effectively deal with both is to completely take away BP, and since 1/2 of BP based teams can't even be considered slightly broken (not saying QP is but its a better argument than FP) there's no reason to ban or nerf Baton Pass In any way.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/lc-218171274 This is a classic volt-turn team and my BP chain found its counter in Gastly and Fletching even if I didn't autolose to them. There were two 50/50 situations (Turn 2 and Turn 18) and a roll that made me lose. But the opponent's volt-turn didn't carry something to have a better matchup against Baton Pass chains, but it's pretty standard.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/lc-218173165 This is a better matchup for Baton Pass and I lost due to a para, another 50/50 with Torchic vs Pawniard and the final damage roll on Mienfoo.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/lc-218175187 There was litterally no chance for me to win this battle because my opponent had Taunt Stunky, Life Orb Gastly and Scarf Chinchou. This is the team I've been using for the LC Swiss Finals against Heysup without changing anything. This was a "one-way" battle because of matchup.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/lc-215775733
This is a battle vs Heysup in which he uses a team with Fletch-Diglett core, he just needed to get +2 with Fletchling to win easily against my whole BP chain.
I'll bring you other replays of Baton Pass maybe against Sticky Web or against TorchPass and Bulky Offense in order to see other common matchups. I think that Baton Pass is a very weak playstyle and can win against a very few good matchups. And even if it has a good matchup it can lose some 50/50 and coinflips that make it lose. By the way I wouldn't say that a team without any check for Baton Pass is a shitty team because there are some exceptions in which the playstyle itself can't deal with Baton Pass (Semistall and "Stall"). But normally Baton Pass hasn't got a good matchup against the majority of the playstyles because you don't need to put some counters to deal with it. I can understand that 50/50 situations are very annoying and some players could consider it detrimental for the competitiveness in the LC Tier, but we can't say that it's centralizing and, therefore, it can limit the teambuilding (at least for the majority of playstyles).
1) Is baton pass broken?
in certain situations, yes, and in others, it's a joke. If your team doesn't carry something that auto wins vs it, such as haze surskit or LO gastly, then it can be stupidly difficult to play, but if you do it's a laughable thing to play. The thing that makes it not overpowered in the least, in my opinion, is that its counters are very common, and even if you don't have one if you can pressure the opponent correctly you can usually win. While not broken, Baton pass is incredibly matchup reliant, making it very unhealthy for the metagame, but not broken
2) Is baton pass making LC not fun?
well, is fighting baton pass chains fun? while baton pass chains are not making LC as a whole less fun, fighting a baton pass chain is really, really, really not fun, whether you auto lose or auto win vs it.
3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring people from playing LC?
no
4) What should baton pass be nerfed to?
3 per team, keeps quickpass viable but fullpass gon
Now here's why baton pass should be banned: If we can make the meta a better, healthier place by banning something, why wouldn't we? If it's unhealthy to the metagame, why keep it? i
in certain situations, yes, and in others, it's a joke. If your team doesn't carry something that auto wins vs it, such as haze surskit or LO gastly, then it can be stupidly difficult to play, but if you do it's a laughable thing to play. The thing that makes it not overpowered in the least, in my opinion, is that its counters are very common, and even if you don't have one if you can pressure the opponent correctly you can usually win. While not broken, Baton pass is incredibly matchup reliant, making it very unhealthy for the metagame, but not broken
2) Is baton pass making LC not fun?
well, is fighting baton pass chains fun? while baton pass chains are not making LC as a whole less fun, fighting a baton pass chain is really, really, really not fun, whether you auto lose or auto win vs it.
3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring people from playing LC?
no
4) What should baton pass be nerfed to?
3 per team, keeps quickpass viable but fullpass gon
Now here's why baton pass should be banned: If we can make the meta a better, healthier place by banning something, why wouldn't we? If it's unhealthy to the metagame, why keep it? i
I think this misconception is the case in point (#lawyer).
Answer to the bolded question: hell no! Not only did I NEVER say that you need to use use phaze or taunt/encore, but I specifically said you should not have to give a fuck about BP when you're team building. All you need to do is not lead with a Pokemon that loses and even in ladder games you have like 3 fucking full minutes to think about it. Every team, without fail, should have one of these Pokemon (like Chinchou, Magnemite, Fletchling, fucking mienfoo, etc).
Is there any proof of this at all?
Maybe you know something I don't, but I've never seen someone or even heard of someone from someone else that even mentions BP when talking about not playing LC. Furthermore, if new and inexperienced players can't beat an experienced player using any team, that's not surprising or weird. That's how you learn and it's the same in any tier. Also I'm pretty sure inexperienced players would rarely even see BP enough for them to even think about it.
Frankly, the reasons I hear are usually like "it's a joke".
GOAO
Banned deucer.
1) Is Baton Pass broken?
No. It is a play style with more than five viable counters.
Offensive teams usually carry a Pokemon that can deal pretty well vs lead Torchic, so it makes the start of the chain pretty difficult
(the first turns against a BP team are crucial). Taunt Mienfoo also happens to be extremely common, and since there isn't any Magic Bounce user in the tier,
the Baton Pass team will have a very difficult time accumulating boosts and passing them.
Defensive teams can also have a phazer/hazer (which basically means the BP team has no chance to win). Cottonee is also another threat that beats BP Chains all the time thanks to Prankster Encore and/or Taunt. Rock Blast Dweeble and Onix help a lot, too.
2) Is Baton Pass making Little Cup not fun?
Nah, there are a good number of Baton Pass checks/counters viable enough to have on standard (and good) teams.
3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring Individuals from playing Little Cup?
No.
4) If there is a Baton Pass nerf, how exactly are we nerfing it?
One or two Pokemon with Baton Pass on the team.
No. It is a play style with more than five viable counters.
Offensive teams usually carry a Pokemon that can deal pretty well vs lead Torchic, so it makes the start of the chain pretty difficult
(the first turns against a BP team are crucial). Taunt Mienfoo also happens to be extremely common, and since there isn't any Magic Bounce user in the tier,
the Baton Pass team will have a very difficult time accumulating boosts and passing them.
Defensive teams can also have a phazer/hazer (which basically means the BP team has no chance to win). Cottonee is also another threat that beats BP Chains all the time thanks to Prankster Encore and/or Taunt. Rock Blast Dweeble and Onix help a lot, too.
2) Is Baton Pass making Little Cup not fun?
Nah, there are a good number of Baton Pass checks/counters viable enough to have on standard (and good) teams.
3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring Individuals from playing Little Cup?
No.
4) If there is a Baton Pass nerf, how exactly are we nerfing it?
One or two Pokemon with Baton Pass on the team.
1) Is baton pass broken?
no, democracy is ton more broken and we are discussing this insteads of the real suspect worth stuff like Mienfoo or Chroldrought.
2) Is baton pass making LC not fun?
if you use it, lose is not fun at all, so it make it not fun for the noobs who use this
3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring people from playing LC?
only if people are really bad at all
4) What should baton pass be nerfed to?
We should increase the suspect reqs, them have a real suspect if needed
no, democracy is ton more broken and we are discussing this insteads of the real suspect worth stuff like Mienfoo or Chroldrought.
2) Is baton pass making LC not fun?
if you use it, lose is not fun at all, so it make it not fun for the noobs who use this
3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring people from playing LC?
only if people are really bad at all
4) What should baton pass be nerfed to?
We should increase the suspect reqs, them have a real suspect if needed
I'm not gonna answer the stupid questions because it seems to me that it's virtually self-evident to 9/10 of these posters that bp isn't broken with the other 10% not even arguing that it's too strong, but that it's viable at all. I actually get extremely excited when I come up against a bp team because they give you free turns all the time, just constantly letting you set up. if you run any kind of statbooster you can easily outrace them to +6 and punch them in their stupid face until their chain is broken, not to mention tauncore fucking it over. trick, even, if you run a trickscarfer like me. I don't think that being "required" to run a good statbooster OR tauncore OR trick, all of which are generally powerful and have been consistently used since little cup's inception, is unreasonable. it's the same thing as having to run something with a modicum of special defense for abra or not running three water types because chinchou exists. metagames are shaped by reacting to powerful strategies/elements and so long as a strategy isnt severely impeding teambuilding then it's silly to ban it. I haven't even seen a post here rly strongly advocating for bp's ban, they're the same wishy-washy "it's not that stron,...but it‘s BROKEN!" posts that have been floating around all test.
also im gonna conclude that it is irrelevant whether bp is "fun" to play against. it is easy to win against and winning is what's fun.
actually I basically did answer first two questions, but how am I supposed to know if people are being deterred? it isnt deterring me, I can't speak for anyone else lol
also im gonna conclude that it is irrelevant whether bp is "fun" to play against. it is easy to win against and winning is what's fun.
actually I basically did answer first two questions, but how am I supposed to know if people are being deterred? it isnt deterring me, I can't speak for anyone else lol
First of all, it's not necessary for you to carry something that auto wins against Baton Pass, Haze Surskit is kinda just for Baton Pass, otherwise trying to stop sweeps with something that is almost dead Turn 1 is bad. Anyways, my point is, answers to Baton Pass don't have to be just for Baton Pass. Life Orb Gastly is a great 'Mon on offense to break Stall and Balance, Taunt Mienfoo helps by stopping set up sweepers and prevents hazards from getting up (to an extent). Whirlwind on a Stall team is nothing less than common, due to how good Hippopotas is on Stall. Again, someone says that Baton Pass is match up reliant, and again, I fail to realize how it is. All you need to do is pressure your opponent (which you can do in several ways e.g hazards, wallbreakers, whirlwind) to the point where their chain can't last. Taunt users and Encore users help a lot as well, and as Heysup has been mentioning, Fletchling destroys a chain if you have a way to put Torchic in range of an Acrobatics.
Also, I don't get why people are calling it not fun. It may be annoying to face if you fought it for like the 50th time, but it's defenitely not deterring anyone from the tier or making Little Cup less fun. Baton Pass is just free points if you know how to deal with it, there's not much else to know.
pls don't ban bp
TBH as more people explain their reasoning as to why it's not broken (and I don't think it's broken as I stated in my original post) I'm starting to be less intimidated by Baton Pass. I've actually played it a few times today and it's not as good in practice as it is in theory (i.e Clamperl being shitty in practice but looks amazing on paper). As I've played against it more it becomes easier and easier to stop since every player uses the same/extremely similar strategies. I'd be fine with a BP limit but now I don't really see one happening as it isn't as threatening as I once thought it to be.
Idk who even is arguing to ban it other than for the purpose of serving devil's advocate lol.
As city said above me, playing against BP more and more just prove how ineffective it can be more and more. Seeing how half the BP teams you play are 90% similar, with experience you can beat these teams rather easily.
I think the biggest pro ban argument stems from bullet point 2- "Is Baton Pass making LC not fun?" This is obviously an open ended question, and like many ill be the first to say that playing full chain Baton Pass teams isn't always the most exciting thing to do, not because it's broken, but if you mess up it takes like 60 turns to end and no one is TRYNA play for that long. We can all agree that winning is fun, however, and being able to beat these chains in 8-10 turns is a pretty good thing. If anything, BP makes 1% (literally about 1% of battles use BP centric teams) not fun because they take too long which I think we as a community can deal with.
Edit: as I wrote this, Merritt challenged me (using the team I listed in my previous post ;D) I personally used my favorite way of breaking through chains (BRUTE STRENGTH) to deal with it pretty easily.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/lc-218231787
You don't need all that fancy taunt phasing encore crap, but Goddess Briyella said it before. Taunt is the most common filler on our most common mon, Pawn swallows these teams whole, as does Fletch. Snivy performs excellent versus these, Corphish hits like a grown man. Basically setting up aside them and wearing them down is just as easy as Phazing if you don't want to jeopardize your precious HO team.
As city said above me, playing against BP more and more just prove how ineffective it can be more and more. Seeing how half the BP teams you play are 90% similar, with experience you can beat these teams rather easily.
I think the biggest pro ban argument stems from bullet point 2- "Is Baton Pass making LC not fun?" This is obviously an open ended question, and like many ill be the first to say that playing full chain Baton Pass teams isn't always the most exciting thing to do, not because it's broken, but if you mess up it takes like 60 turns to end and no one is TRYNA play for that long. We can all agree that winning is fun, however, and being able to beat these chains in 8-10 turns is a pretty good thing. If anything, BP makes 1% (literally about 1% of battles use BP centric teams) not fun because they take too long which I think we as a community can deal with.
Edit: as I wrote this, Merritt challenged me (using the team I listed in my previous post ;D) I personally used my favorite way of breaking through chains (BRUTE STRENGTH) to deal with it pretty easily.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/lc-218231787
You don't need all that fancy taunt phasing encore crap, but Goddess Briyella said it before. Taunt is the most common filler on our most common mon, Pawn swallows these teams whole, as does Fletch. Snivy performs excellent versus these, Corphish hits like a grown man. Basically setting up aside them and wearing them down is just as easy as Phazing if you don't want to jeopardize your precious HO team.
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sam-testings
What a beautiful face, I have found in this place
Well, time to put my two cents into this argument.
pliez don't kill me
1) Is Baton Pass broken/making the tier not fun?
It all depends on what you define as broken. Broken can be defined as many things such as how well it sweeps or how many uses it has. One of the many arguments posted above say that Baton pass is based on luck and causes 50/50s. Well, that is the definition of broken pretty much. Swagger was banned because it caused 50/50s, and Baton pass causes that too. But, it is incredibley easy to play around, and it really is a gimmick above everything else. The sole reason i supported it in the first place was because it sucks to encounter it when you just start in low ladder. True story, I just started LC and got rekt in my third battle by some bp user and wondered why there wasn't a clause.
2)Is a combination of 1 or 2 deterring people from playing lc?
nope. I played on.
3)What should baton pass be nerfed to?
I actually made a 3 mon bp team, and it actually requires some thinking and skill to pull it off, so if there ever is a nerf, i say 3 mons.
pliez don't kill me
1) Is Baton Pass broken/making the tier not fun?
It all depends on what you define as broken. Broken can be defined as many things such as how well it sweeps or how many uses it has. One of the many arguments posted above say that Baton pass is based on luck and causes 50/50s. Well, that is the definition of broken pretty much. Swagger was banned because it caused 50/50s, and Baton pass causes that too. But, it is incredibley easy to play around, and it really is a gimmick above everything else. The sole reason i supported it in the first place was because it sucks to encounter it when you just start in low ladder. True story, I just started LC and got rekt in my third battle by some bp user and wondered why there wasn't a clause.
2)Is a combination of 1 or 2 deterring people from playing lc?
nope. I played on.
3)What should baton pass be nerfed to?
I actually made a 3 mon bp team, and it actually requires some thinking and skill to pull it off, so if there ever is a nerf, i say 3 mons.
It's honestly quite irritating to see those people who put Baton Pass as one of their suspects in the other thread just suddenly laugh it off as a joke here when they clearly either seriously considered it themselves initially or, more likely, have no idea what they're even trying to talk about, haven't actually formulated their own opinion, and are just going with the flow. There's nothing wrong with people switching over their opinions after playing with it more or going through more arguments, and at this rate I might change my mind as well, but to have users go from clamouring for a Baton Pass suspect to totally ridiculing it in the blink of an eye is a bit of a stretch, and sort of makes me question whether they're even trying to *contribute* to the tier.
With that being said, I would still like to address a few points that have been brought up -
Fletchling, Drilbur, Pawniard and pals are not a free win against Baton Pass. In terms of lead match-ups, Baton Pass teams that carry one of Drifloon or physically defensive variants of Mime Jr or Buneary (Mime Jr in particular is basically mandatory for most chains anyway) almost always win against Fletchling, because +0 Acrobatics can't OHKO Torchic and +1 Acrobatics can't OHKO the aforementioned Baton Pass staples, allowing the Baton Pass user to Will-o-Wisp -> Substitute -> Baton Pass to Defense boosting recipient -> have BJ activated as the BP user boosts Defense -> Barrier again if Mime Jr and then pass to whatever, or pass to Munna otherwise, who easily avoids the 2HKO from Acrobatics and KOs with a 100 BP Stored Power after five rounds of burn. Pawniard loses even more badly because the BP user can Protect -> Substitute until BJ activates -> burn -> pass to Mienfoo, who then forces Pawniard out or KOs it, crippling Pawniard to the point that it won't be threatening the chain for the rest of the match. Drilbur forces a 50/50 depending on whether Torchic Subs/burns or Protects on Drilbur's SD or Earthquake, as a -2 Drilbur can't OHKO Torchic and a +0 Drilbur will be set-up bait for the bp chain's Defense booster. Gastly and Abra also force a 50/50 depending on whether Torchic Subs or Protects, because if Torchic can safely get a teammate in with Speed boosts, then it can go to the Special Defense booster to wall Abra or to Mienfoo to Knock Off Gastly.
It's a gross exaggeration to say that any moderately powerful Pokemon is able to put a stop to Baton Pass on its own, and even phazers/Taunters can be Taunted by the Baton Pass chain's own Taunt users. Hazards aren't nearly enough to even heavily impact chains because while you're setting up hazards, the opponent is setting up boosts and Substitutes and just overall becoming nigh invincible. I feel like a lot of people aren't giving enough credit to the number of tools Baton Pass has.
It's certainly possible to play around Baton Pass after it gets going even without Cottonee or Purrloin, yes, but it usually comes down to crits because it's really, really difficult to take down a boosted Pokemon. There aren't a whole lot of Pokemon that can just waltz in and casually take down something with +2 Def / SpA / SpD / +3 Spe, and it's not all that difficult to get the chain going in the first place when literally everything except for Gothita is heavily investing in bulk and running Berry Juice or Eviolite. The likes of Zigzagoon and Fletchling struggle to find opportunities to set up a sweep because of their frailty, and you only need to maintain 20 HP after Stealth Rock and hit 14 Def with Eviolite to avoid the OHKO from a +2 Fletchling, which isn't too hard to come by.
A few people I'm getting the impression are thinking of the wrong Baton Pass archetype, because Quickpass is pretty much always considered perfectly fine. Baton Pass chains would be those consisting of six of Torchic / Mienfoo / Munna / Mime Jr / Togepi / Gothita / Natu / Drifloon / Shelmet / Deerling / Venonat / Shelmet or occasionally Buizel / Aipom / Skitty / Eevee / Sewaddle.
With that being said, I would still like to address a few points that have been brought up -
Fletchling, Drilbur, Pawniard and pals are not a free win against Baton Pass. In terms of lead match-ups, Baton Pass teams that carry one of Drifloon or physically defensive variants of Mime Jr or Buneary (Mime Jr in particular is basically mandatory for most chains anyway) almost always win against Fletchling, because +0 Acrobatics can't OHKO Torchic and +1 Acrobatics can't OHKO the aforementioned Baton Pass staples, allowing the Baton Pass user to Will-o-Wisp -> Substitute -> Baton Pass to Defense boosting recipient -> have BJ activated as the BP user boosts Defense -> Barrier again if Mime Jr and then pass to whatever, or pass to Munna otherwise, who easily avoids the 2HKO from Acrobatics and KOs with a 100 BP Stored Power after five rounds of burn. Pawniard loses even more badly because the BP user can Protect -> Substitute until BJ activates -> burn -> pass to Mienfoo, who then forces Pawniard out or KOs it, crippling Pawniard to the point that it won't be threatening the chain for the rest of the match. Drilbur forces a 50/50 depending on whether Torchic Subs/burns or Protects on Drilbur's SD or Earthquake, as a -2 Drilbur can't OHKO Torchic and a +0 Drilbur will be set-up bait for the bp chain's Defense booster. Gastly and Abra also force a 50/50 depending on whether Torchic Subs or Protects, because if Torchic can safely get a teammate in with Speed boosts, then it can go to the Special Defense booster to wall Abra or to Mienfoo to Knock Off Gastly.
It's a gross exaggeration to say that any moderately powerful Pokemon is able to put a stop to Baton Pass on its own, and even phazers/Taunters can be Taunted by the Baton Pass chain's own Taunt users. Hazards aren't nearly enough to even heavily impact chains because while you're setting up hazards, the opponent is setting up boosts and Substitutes and just overall becoming nigh invincible. I feel like a lot of people aren't giving enough credit to the number of tools Baton Pass has.
It's certainly possible to play around Baton Pass after it gets going even without Cottonee or Purrloin, yes, but it usually comes down to crits because it's really, really difficult to take down a boosted Pokemon. There aren't a whole lot of Pokemon that can just waltz in and casually take down something with +2 Def / SpA / SpD / +3 Spe, and it's not all that difficult to get the chain going in the first place when literally everything except for Gothita is heavily investing in bulk and running Berry Juice or Eviolite. The likes of Zigzagoon and Fletchling struggle to find opportunities to set up a sweep because of their frailty, and you only need to maintain 20 HP after Stealth Rock and hit 14 Def with Eviolite to avoid the OHKO from a +2 Fletchling, which isn't too hard to come by.
A few people I'm getting the impression are thinking of the wrong Baton Pass archetype, because Quickpass is pretty much always considered perfectly fine. Baton Pass chains would be those consisting of six of Torchic / Mienfoo / Munna / Mime Jr / Togepi / Gothita / Natu / Drifloon / Shelmet / Deerling / Venonat / Shelmet or occasionally Buizel / Aipom / Skitty / Eevee / Sewaddle.
Oi, I'll have you know I played shitty in the game. It was like my fifth bp game ever, so I wasn't aware Foo could survive EQ too.
Also it came down to an 85:15 that I lost with the will-o-miss turn 1.
BP isn't unbeatable by any means, though, although FullPass can end up somewhat reliant on hax at certain point. In another game I switched to Togepi, which had +2 Def on a +0 Pawniard Iron Head. Togepi would have survived, BJed, and been able to OHKO back, but on that one turn Pawniard got a crit.
Reliance on luck if you fail to stop it early sucks a lot, I have to say. I am anti-ban however.
I've been trying to push forward the mentality that people should actually fucking think before nominating stuff because as the situation is right now, Baton Pass could be banned based on the whim of a few (albeit, experienced) LC players.
And yea, changing their mind now is fine. However, what the fuck? During the nominations phase, your opinion did matter. And right now, well, Dwayne said it best.
You (the flip-floppers) aren't making the decisions anymore, so it's too late. This just confirms that people didn't actually think too hard about nominations because people were preaching that "nominating is not banning" which is a bullshit attitude.
While I usually think the concept of "free win" is pretty ridiculous, I have to say BP is an appropriate use of it. However I will say that alone those Pokemon are NOT free wins. Look at how I played against a BP team with my Fletchling team. I just lead with Magnemite and Volt Switched to Fletchling on something and then +2 GG'd them. I didn't just derp with Fletchling turn 1 and hope for a 6-0.
These Pokemon are free wins but that does not mean you can throw them out without thinking against leads. You just need to think, and you will almost assuredly have an algorithmic victory.
As long as you don't treat BP like a joke, it is one.
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Game 1: fran made a suboptimal play with chou that resulted in Gastly dying. I don't know why he didn't volt switch. then he sends Fletch in because ????? seriously, that first replay meant nothing.
Game 2: Fran lost his phazer early due to bad luck (though I don't see why he started phazing early), and he let his pawniard get burned. I'm not sure what you're trying to prove.
Game three: losing gunk really hurt but either way Gastly pretty much crushed your team alone.
Game 4 goes to show what pressuring does lol.
I agree that BP is pretty weak, but if people are going to say it's "matchup based" if a team has one of many common checks to the style, then I'm not seeing ANY merit for nerfs or bans.
Haze is a great 4th move on surskit, useful for stopping BU timburr and CM spritz sweeps. These answers are otherwise viable, but if you have them it's a pretty algorithmic win, and if you don't you lose. there are many viable answers to baton pass, but there are other options that people would like to run but cannot because of baton pass. For example, when I feel like laddering I must run SD on fletchling, when I would like to run overheat. Baton pass is free points if your team can deal with it, but I'd much rather get the best LC battler ever and learn something from my loss and have a fun battle than get 'free points'. For me, the ladder is about having fun, not how many points I have.
and I would like for someone to actually answer the question: If we can make LC a better metagame by banning Baton pass, why wouldn't we? I see no reason to not ban it if it can make LC a healthier metagame.
Hopefully you mean nerfing Baton Pass because the move itself is nowhere near broken. To be totally honest, I think Baton Pass teams make the metagame healthier in a way, as it introduces a new archetype that you need to prepare for when teambuilding and strongly differs from the standard VoltTurn and Bulky Offense. It's not a skill-less strategy that relies on luck (like Swagger was) and, if both players are competent, it requires the user to make good plays and predict the opponent, so as to not be caught by a Taunt / Encore / Haze mon or trapped by a Gothita or something. It's an annoying playstyle to fight against, but it's not broken or making the metagame unhealthy really; it's simply a matter of people not wanting to have to prepare for the archetype nor actually predict against it. Limiting a strategy based on this isn't unheard of and it is possible due to the way the current suspect is set up but it just feels... idk gross that that'd we be limiting a team type that isn't all that hard to overcome if played against correctly. There's not harm in nerfing Baton Pass to 2-3 mons, but there's also no true reason to in my opinion.
This may sound kind of pretentious, but I'm going to address it anyways. Looking back over the suspect nominations, a lot of the people who placed a BP Clause in their top 3 are seldom seen on PS or on IRC discussing LC and a decent amount have barely any posts on Smogon. A lot of them haven't even bothered to post in this thread (yet) to argue their reasoning as to why Baton Pass deserves a nerf. Considering that most of the people who play LC the most voting Nominate Nothing and only a few voted for a BP Clause (with a solid reasoning), I feel like this was just some bandwagon of people who played a couple BP teams and lacked a means of stopping them so it was deemed broken in their eyes. I could be entirely wrong about these users, so I challenge those who voted for BP to show us why they feel it's so broken.
Also tagging ZoroarkForever again because we had a brief discussion a while ago on PS about BP and I'm really interested to hear your opinion on the subject, especially considering you were one of the people to produce a successful (and annoying) Baton Pass team. Post something you nerd.
The fact that we are suspecting baton pass in a metagame where bp teams are few and far between is to me indicative of an already balanced meta. It seems to me that this suspect is just nitpicking and residual salt after losing to bp teams. In short, this really is not necessary.
1. Is baton pass broken? No. I am sure the points that I'm about to make have been made by other posters previously but here's what I have to contribute. Any skilled player will be able to identify baton pass in the team preview and know what to expect from it. I don't see bp so much as a playstyle but more of a strategy which is easily undermined by taunt, encore, roar/whirlwind users. I only encountered three baton pass teams in the 60ish games I played during the suspect and due to my poor teambuilding I didn't have any of those moves on my team, yet I was able to beat these teams with relatively few problems. These battles were quite high on the suspect ladder so I would like to think that my opponents weren't "bad players" rather their strategy was just easily handled. Regarding the "chain passing", the bp that I have seen tends to be chicken, foo or mime (there are others) alone. A complete chain is very difficult to achieve for the aforementioned reasons that the abundance of well constructed LC teams will have at least one taunter/encore abuser. The vast majority of attempts I've seen to complete a bp chain in LC have been beaten with relative ease. I know this evidence may be somewhat lacking but as far I am concerned using baton pass does not equate to guaranteed wins, does not over-centralize the metagame and is not non-competitive. Suspecting it alone is a surprise to me since I thought most voters would have a greater interest in expanding the metagame (bringing back previously banned Pokemon).
2. Is baton pass making LC not fun? It's not a strategy anyone enjoys playing against in any tier but as a previous poster said "it's just something you have to put up with". Banning a legitimate strategy that is not difficult to beat would be a mockery to the quality of LC players in this suspect.
3. Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring individuals from playing Little Cup? I mentioned popular bp users in 1. but I don't think these are deterring people from playing Little Cup. I doubt people are waiting for the ban of baton pass so that they can play LC again since "Pokemon A" and "Pokemon B" are on every team and using it. It's a rarely used strategy and there a variety of ways in which it can be used by different stat passers. The answer to this is simply "no".
4) If there is a Baton Pass nerf, how exactly are we nerfing it? I really don't see many ways of nerfing it since I've already stated that I don't think that it needs to be nerfed in any way. If worse came to worst you could limit the number of Pokemon on a team with baton pass although I still think this would be a completely superfluous measure.
I apologize for the lack of replays in this post. I had some really great battles during this suspect and would have saved the replays against baton pass, had I ever imagined that it would have been suspected. I look forward to reading the rest of this discussion and hope that we come to the right conclusion regarding this strategy of play.
1. Is baton pass broken? No. I am sure the points that I'm about to make have been made by other posters previously but here's what I have to contribute. Any skilled player will be able to identify baton pass in the team preview and know what to expect from it. I don't see bp so much as a playstyle but more of a strategy which is easily undermined by taunt, encore, roar/whirlwind users. I only encountered three baton pass teams in the 60ish games I played during the suspect and due to my poor teambuilding I didn't have any of those moves on my team, yet I was able to beat these teams with relatively few problems. These battles were quite high on the suspect ladder so I would like to think that my opponents weren't "bad players" rather their strategy was just easily handled. Regarding the "chain passing", the bp that I have seen tends to be chicken, foo or mime (there are others) alone. A complete chain is very difficult to achieve for the aforementioned reasons that the abundance of well constructed LC teams will have at least one taunter/encore abuser. The vast majority of attempts I've seen to complete a bp chain in LC have been beaten with relative ease. I know this evidence may be somewhat lacking but as far I am concerned using baton pass does not equate to guaranteed wins, does not over-centralize the metagame and is not non-competitive. Suspecting it alone is a surprise to me since I thought most voters would have a greater interest in expanding the metagame (bringing back previously banned Pokemon).
2. Is baton pass making LC not fun? It's not a strategy anyone enjoys playing against in any tier but as a previous poster said "it's just something you have to put up with". Banning a legitimate strategy that is not difficult to beat would be a mockery to the quality of LC players in this suspect.
3. Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring individuals from playing Little Cup? I mentioned popular bp users in 1. but I don't think these are deterring people from playing Little Cup. I doubt people are waiting for the ban of baton pass so that they can play LC again since "Pokemon A" and "Pokemon B" are on every team and using it. It's a rarely used strategy and there a variety of ways in which it can be used by different stat passers. The answer to this is simply "no".
4) If there is a Baton Pass nerf, how exactly are we nerfing it? I really don't see many ways of nerfing it since I've already stated that I don't think that it needs to be nerfed in any way. If worse came to worst you could limit the number of Pokemon on a team with baton pass although I still think this would be a completely superfluous measure.
I apologize for the lack of replays in this post. I had some really great battles during this suspect and would have saved the replays against baton pass, had I ever imagined that it would have been suspected. I look forward to reading the rest of this discussion and hope that we come to the right conclusion regarding this strategy of play.
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