Timer Clause is in effect what I'll be calling the option of timer stalling as it is on-cart. For those of you who don't actually own the game (for shame!), there's a timer implemented in every multiplayer battle now. For regular ranked matches and local battles, battles are limited to one hour, while special rated battles and official tournament matches are limited to only 15 minutes. When this timer runs out, the player with the most Pokemon remaining or HP wins the match.
So, even though your entire team might be in the red with a Scizor threatening a sweep, you can still win if you've taken enough time off the timer beforehand. This is balanced by the fact that you still need to stall those turns, so that Scizor might still run you through if you're losing a Pokemon every turn. Conserving Pokemon to win on timer adds another aspect to the game, albeit not an incredibly common one on-cart.
So, why would we even consider Timer Clause? To put it simply, it minimizes luck. I know you guys are currently complaining about Prankster Swagger, but if you think that's bad, try battling a Minimize team on the GBU (or Battle Spot, but GBU has a better acronym) metagames. These teams can't do enough damage fast enough to put themselves in a position to win on timer, so people that know about the game's tiebreakers simply timer stall these teams out. If they don't know to do so, Minimize+Toxic will quickly bring teams to their knees. Timer stalling on-cart is still painful to do, but at least they get the win and hopefully makes the person with Minimize think twice about their team composition, especially if this happens more than once. It's not hard to imagine how Swagger 'teams' in Singles would be influenced by Timer Clause either; as long as you can knock out at least one Pokemon and if they take their sweet time trying to confuse you, you're actually guaranteed to win against them. I recall someone showing me a 'Funbro' set that used Recycle Leppa and Block, which would obviously be subject to timer stalling as well, so there's another plus for you.
Speaking from personal experience here as a VGC player, matches can go to time even when we're not trying to stall. I had one match this past regional that went to time and most definitely made a difference, even though we didn't stall for time. I can only speak from experience here since I haven't seen or heard of too many matches being decided this way (probably due in part of how they restricted battle videos this gen), but considering VGC matches have considerably less time on their timer, it's going to be more common there, so it stands to reason we should at least have a way to practice for that scenario since PS! is a great testing ground for such things before actually going out and breeding and training full teams for actual events.
The cons to Timer Clause (that I see) boil down to being difficult to implement into PS! and how timer stalling there might encourage people to timer stall prematurely on cart, making matches less enjoyable. While 'premature' timer stalling on cart probably won't be used widely apart from people who have a perpetual stick up their ass, implementation of such a clause into a simulator would be tricky. Most of the problem here is the fact that the attack animations aren't nearly as long on the sim as they are on-cart, and PS!'s battle timer, whose only purpose is to hurry along someone's move, might conflict with Timer Clause. PS!'s battle timer might be a boon to keeping Timer Clause balanced though; it keeps people from just waiting one turn after they KO one Pokemon until the timer runs dry, much like the turn timer on-cart (which is, by the way, shorter for VGC as well at 45 seconds).
So, disregarding how hard it may or may not be to code because I have no idea how computer magic works, the real problem becomes battle animations. I propose a button that can pop up when someone's ahead in the match after a certain number of turns that will cause a timer to start ticking away and when it hits zero, the tiebreakers will be applied and someone will win on the spot. The time given and number of turns that triggers the button will obviously have to be balanced, and will more than likely be a long an arduous process, and of course I'm open to suggestions on this.
Overall, it's something that needs to be looked into, especially for vgc. Without the option to timer stall, strategies like Swagger spam and Minimize make laddering a lot less consistent and less skill-based. It's a mechanic on-cart that influences matches, so I don't see why we shouldn't be concerned with at least trying to emulate it on our official simulator, unless I missed the memo and we're not actually simulating cart mechanics.
Also, I've been told this has been discussed before but user: Pwnemon has not supplied me with a link and I haven't been able to find it. Regardless, I think it's something we should look into, if only for VGC matches.
So, even though your entire team might be in the red with a Scizor threatening a sweep, you can still win if you've taken enough time off the timer beforehand. This is balanced by the fact that you still need to stall those turns, so that Scizor might still run you through if you're losing a Pokemon every turn. Conserving Pokemon to win on timer adds another aspect to the game, albeit not an incredibly common one on-cart.
So, why would we even consider Timer Clause? To put it simply, it minimizes luck. I know you guys are currently complaining about Prankster Swagger, but if you think that's bad, try battling a Minimize team on the GBU (or Battle Spot, but GBU has a better acronym) metagames. These teams can't do enough damage fast enough to put themselves in a position to win on timer, so people that know about the game's tiebreakers simply timer stall these teams out. If they don't know to do so, Minimize+Toxic will quickly bring teams to their knees. Timer stalling on-cart is still painful to do, but at least they get the win and hopefully makes the person with Minimize think twice about their team composition, especially if this happens more than once. It's not hard to imagine how Swagger 'teams' in Singles would be influenced by Timer Clause either; as long as you can knock out at least one Pokemon and if they take their sweet time trying to confuse you, you're actually guaranteed to win against them. I recall someone showing me a 'Funbro' set that used Recycle Leppa and Block, which would obviously be subject to timer stalling as well, so there's another plus for you.
Speaking from personal experience here as a VGC player, matches can go to time even when we're not trying to stall. I had one match this past regional that went to time and most definitely made a difference, even though we didn't stall for time. I can only speak from experience here since I haven't seen or heard of too many matches being decided this way (probably due in part of how they restricted battle videos this gen), but considering VGC matches have considerably less time on their timer, it's going to be more common there, so it stands to reason we should at least have a way to practice for that scenario since PS! is a great testing ground for such things before actually going out and breeding and training full teams for actual events.
The cons to Timer Clause (that I see) boil down to being difficult to implement into PS! and how timer stalling there might encourage people to timer stall prematurely on cart, making matches less enjoyable. While 'premature' timer stalling on cart probably won't be used widely apart from people who have a perpetual stick up their ass, implementation of such a clause into a simulator would be tricky. Most of the problem here is the fact that the attack animations aren't nearly as long on the sim as they are on-cart, and PS!'s battle timer, whose only purpose is to hurry along someone's move, might conflict with Timer Clause. PS!'s battle timer might be a boon to keeping Timer Clause balanced though; it keeps people from just waiting one turn after they KO one Pokemon until the timer runs dry, much like the turn timer on-cart (which is, by the way, shorter for VGC as well at 45 seconds).
So, disregarding how hard it may or may not be to code because I have no idea how computer magic works, the real problem becomes battle animations. I propose a button that can pop up when someone's ahead in the match after a certain number of turns that will cause a timer to start ticking away and when it hits zero, the tiebreakers will be applied and someone will win on the spot. The time given and number of turns that triggers the button will obviously have to be balanced, and will more than likely be a long an arduous process, and of course I'm open to suggestions on this.
Overall, it's something that needs to be looked into, especially for vgc. Without the option to timer stall, strategies like Swagger spam and Minimize make laddering a lot less consistent and less skill-based. It's a mechanic on-cart that influences matches, so I don't see why we shouldn't be concerned with at least trying to emulate it on our official simulator, unless I missed the memo and we're not actually simulating cart mechanics.
Also, I've been told this has been discussed before but user: Pwnemon has not supplied me with a link and I haven't been able to find it. Regardless, I think it's something we should look into, if only for VGC matches.