Other Tiers Would an Item Clause make GSC more popular?

We all know GSC is the stalliest meta and is the least played one. We all know that part of the reason why GSC is more stally is due to the omnipresence of leftovers. I'm sure it's been suggested a million times, but why not remove the item clause.

I honestly cannot think of an argument against an item clause other than "tradition". But let's face it, probably 90% of people who play gen1 and 2 competitively today probably didn't play it in the 'old' days. Apart from the fact that an item clause would lessen the stall (to an extent) it is also the truly "official" way to play GSC, ie. it as used for PS2 and official Niintendo GSC tourneys. It would allow for item diversity and make the thief meta more interesting.

It honestly seems like a brainless decision to me. It's the official competitive meta of GSC, more diverse and less stally. I'm not saying GSC would suddenly become amazingly popular because of an item clause, but it would probably have more activity than if it didn't have an item clause.

So what arguments are there against an item clause apart from tradition?
 
The lack of viable items in GSC make the item clause completly less of interest. It's not leftovers who makes the metagame stalliest but players. Look at the ADV tier. It was stalliest as fuck before it was popularized by the smogon tour. Peoples discovored that it was possible to play offensive because it was possible to play at this tier more frequently. And this is what GSC doesn't have actually: an interest to play. If we create a tour with old gens, I'm pretty sure people will start to play in a more offensive way.
 
I've never played competitive GSC so take this with a pinch of salt:

- While following tradition isn't the best argument for keeping something, conforming to "official" rules is just as poor an argument the other way. Basically the tradition argument is "We should keep Smogon's rules because they are Smogon's rules", while the officialdom argument is "We should adopt Nintendo's rules because they are Nintendo's rules".

- The metagame may be unbalanced towards stall, but that is Game Freak's problem, not Smogon's.

- There just aren't any other good items. By enforcing an item clause you are effectively enforcing one of your team members to be significantly better than the others. This has the effect of amplifying match-ups (you are at a disadvantage if your Leftovers user loses to theirs).

- To my knowledge Smogon has never made a rule change to a non-current metagame.

- From what I hear, Snorlax is the real problem, and is only free because Smogon didn't have the rigorous suspect testing process it does today.

- Some people may like the stalliness. Maybe they consider it an antidote to the terrifying hyper offense of recent generations. If you don't like it, you don't have to play it.
 

Jorgen

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The rationale for no item clause is not really tradition. It's just... there's no real point. You don't really add variety by forcing people to use other items in GSC because all the non-Leftovers items legitimately suck (Thick Club Marowak being an obvious exception). Unless you're some weird cartridge purist who thinks Stadium 2 Poke Cup or whatever ought to be the official GSC metagame, there's no real reason to go out of your way to implement item clause.

As for making GSC more popular and less stally, it wouldn't. In fact, by effectively banning Lefties you're rendering non-Resting attackers like Nidoking nonviable or close to it, thereby making stall mons like Suicune and Blissey all that much more powerful, relatively speaking.
 

Mr.E

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GSC is "stally" for the same reason RBY is: everymon has max stats. Alakazam can literally tank T-Tar's Pursuit, Encore it and win 1v1. Nidoking doesn't OHKO Gengar, nor does it get OHKOed by Starmie. The fact Leftovers is the only good hold item is a rather minor contributor to the fact.

And yes, I much prefer it this way. GSC is a chess match. RSE is checkers. 4th and 5th gen are coin flips. (6th gen had a lot of competitive concessions made to tone down the hyper offense of recent past, plus toward actual training/breeding good mons, so I think it has more promise.)
 
It's not just PS2, item clause was used in official Nintendo GSC tourneys. It was how competitive GSC was intended to be played.

I don't follow your logic. A pokemon like suicine would be forced to rest earlier, making it less effective. The lack of lefties rewards prediction and aggression moreso, and makes the spikes/status war more important. I'd say that everything dying in less hits favours attackers because attackers don't take many hits anyway.

And non-lefties items only suck against a team of lefties. The lack of lefties also makes trying to steal a lax's lefties or a wak's club more enticing. I think it'd make the item and theft game more interesting. Nido could run something like an expert belt because of his coverage.

Edit- How other gens play should have nothing to do with how GSC is played. GSC would still be a chess match. You still have the scouting, the spikes/status war, the bait-exploding etc. If anything even more scouting would be required because you'd need to scout items.
 

Bedschibaer

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http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_items_by_index_number_(Generation_II)

What is there really to use? Brightpowder? Quick Claw? Or the items that increase the power of certain move types? No thank you.
Slap a magnet on your zapdos, and tell me you won't miss your leftovers. Nobody will ever do that.
Expert Belt does not exist in gen 2 iirc.
Also, there are so many setup sweepers that benefit from leftovers hugely, Vaporeon comes to mind. Taking the leftovers would make it hard to come in many times, to set up without being forced to rest on the second turn, etc. Stall isn't the only thing that benefits from lefties, many offensive mons do as much as the defensive mons (since most OU mons are both offensive and defensive at the same time anyways). The thing that makes stall so easy to play are the maxed out "EVs", like half of the thread already stated.
The games are always played on the base of you being able to have the best things availiable (maxed DVs, NYPC moves, etc). Enforcing an item clause would just make the item slot wasted on 90% of all mons, imo.
Oh, and with lefties, a team is not forced to run a spinner, without lefties the spikes/spinner war would be mandatory, which takes quite some diversity from the meta again.

Also i never really got the item clause anyways, it does make games diverse in gens where more good items exist, but why would you implement it in the first place? The game gives you the opportunity to get more of the same item, why should that be not the way it's intended to play?
 
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Offense and defense are so intertwined that you can't be sure of where the meta will move just by removing Lefties.

But I dunno, it just doesn't seem like an interesting proposition. Do you really think GSC needs fixing this bad?
 
Miracleberry is probably the second best held item in GSC and it actually has some use, even without Item Clause. Mint Berry could be used on pair with Rest for a "GSC-Resto-Chesto" kind of a thing.
But as said before, stall is not Leftovers' fault.
 
eh, i'd probably just try and start lucking people with quick claw/bright powder imo. minty rest snorlax isn't as good as one that decides to get 999 speed on you. or failed ww?

bring back scope lens machamp
 

Mr.E

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Were there even any official GSC tournaments? After the original RBY Worlds in 2000, I didn't think official competitive mons was a thing again until JAA in 2006, which was 3rd gen.

Also i never really got the item clause anyways, it does make games diverse in gens where more good items exist, but why would you implement it in the first place? The game gives you the opportunity to get more of the same item, why should that be not the way it's intended to play?
Well, species clause exists for no particular reason other to ensure variety in pokemon usage. I am not opposed to item clause necessarily but it'd both be silly to implement it at this point and we've never followed item clause in standard 6v6 singles anyway, so why make the exception now and only for a metagame long past its prime?
 
E- There were, they had the Ubers banned (which is where the Ubers tier of having something like Celebi banned but not lax comes from). They had species' clause, item clause, can't remember if they had freeze and sleep clauses, and they had self ko clause. The OHKO and evasion clauses weren't used though, they're just things a community of people arbitrarily decided were 'official'.

Bed- Games aren't always played on having the best things available, if that were the case Ubers wouldnt be banned.

It's still just a familiarity. Your arguments are all essentially revolving around how it changes the leftovers meta, implying that that is the correct meta and changing the viability of the pokemon in that meta is wrong. This reminds of how people would say wrap shouldn't be unbanned because of how much it would change what it currently considered viable. What is currently played should not be considered at all. Saying that the items in GSC suck so the meta would suck is like saying all RBY pokemon suck because they dont have items.

I also don't get these 'you need it to survive spikes arguments'. If that were the case every pokemon in later gen metas would be running them. Without lefties, your team dies to spikes quicker, and so does theirs. It simply makes the spikes war have more weight.
 

Bedschibaer

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Tiering is not the same, since you can use all those pokemon the best way they can be in their tier.

Saying that the items in GSC suck so the meta would suck is like saying all RBY pokemon suck because they dont have items.
not at all, because the pokemon were used to their fullest extent back then. While "wasting" an itemslot on something because you can't use the best suitable item (leftovers in 90% of all cases).

I also don't get these 'you need it to survive spikes arguments'. If that were the case every pokemon in later gen metas would be running them. Without lefties, your team dies to spikes quicker, and so does theirs. It simply makes the spikes war have more weight.
Average new gen game: 30-50 turns
Average gen 2 game: 100-150 turns
Without leftovers the spikes damage would wrap up rapidly and give all your mons less staying power, especially the offensive ones that don't carry recovery moves. I'm just saying that is centralizing the meta again, rather than making it diverse, since every team needs to focus on spikes much more.
 
The way you put it, you make it sound like spikes would be banned if lefties didnt exist. You can still spin spikes. But that's irrelevant, faster paced games are more popular than slower paced ones, that's why GSC is the least played meta. Removing lefties wouldnt remove stall entirely, but it would make it faster paced. It also opens a new door in the thief meta, as people would try to steal lefties and scout for items. Something will always centralise the meta. It's better to have that thing be faster paced because that is more popular.
 
With Item Clause I imagine a meta where every team has lax with lefties and a Marowak and consequently the tier becomes not only more centralised around lax but also pretty much invalidates any other playstyle aside from MaroLax offense.

But then, I'm not a pro gscer.
 
- To my knowledge Smogon has never made a rule change to a non-current metagame.
Smogon banned Ingrain Smeargle in ADV well after its heyday.

- From what I hear, Snorlax is the real problem, and is only free because Smogon didn't have the rigorous suspect testing process it does today.
Lax contributes to stalliness because the main counters to it are CurseRoar/Growl/PerishTrap, but it isn't what makes GSC slow as fuck. What makes GSC slow as fuck is maxed-stat legendaries with RestTalk+Leftovers and no setup moves.

GSC is "stally" for the same reason RBY is: everymon has max stats. Alakazam can literally tank T-Tar's Pursuit, Encore it and win 1v1. Nidoking doesn't OHKO Gengar, nor does it get OHKOed by Starmie. The fact Leftovers is the only good hold item is a rather minor contributor to the fact.
But RBY isn't particularly stally. GSC is far stallier for a few reasons:

1) Legendaries get recovery.
2) Crits are rarer.
3) Skarmory exists (+ Hyper Beam doesn't work anymore).
4) CurseLax doesn't invite offense the way RBY Chansey does.

Lefties contribute to #1, #3, and #4 (though in all cases they're not the biggest issue).

I don't follow your logic. A pokemon like suicine would be forced to rest earlier, making it less effective. The lack of lefties rewards prediction and aggression moreso, and makes the spikes/status war more important. I'd say that everything dying in less hits favours attackers because attackers don't take many hits anyway.
Among other things, it makes Steelix, Rhydon, and Tentacruel have fewer opportunities to switch in and/or gamble with Substitute, because they're taking more chip damage.
 
It's better to have that thing be faster paced because that is more popular.
I really don't get this line of reasoning. A faster GSC would still be the slowest gen. Who would we be fooling? If you want to popularize GSC, wouldn't you emphasize the unique pace that you can't get in any other metagame?

I'm sure an item clause tournament would be fun. But long-term—I'm sorry, trite as it may be, there's something to playing a highly-developed metagame steeped in a decade of history. Nobody's gonna drop all that unless the item clause can give us some serious and urgent improvements. And you haven't shown that it can.
 
Clearly emphasising its unique qualities isn't working because it is easily the least popular gen. People like fast paced metas. It'd still be slow sure, but it'd be faster, more official and more diverse.

I'm sure an item clause tournament would be fun. But long-term—I'm sorry, trite as it may be, there's something to playing a highly-developed metagame steeped in a decade of history
This is what I don't like about Smogon to be honest. It would be all well and good if the old-timers constituted the majority of the playerbase, but the reality is probably 90% of people who currently play RBY and GSC weren't around in the old days. I just don't see why 90% of the playerbase should have to play by rules governed by like the 3-4 old timers who still pay GSC.
 
People like fast paced metas.
Of the six generations, gen V's OU, partcularly B2W2, has been the most offensive. And the general consensus is that it was a bit of a failure of a meta.

I just don't see why 90% of the playerbase should have to play by rules governed by like the 3-4 old timers who still pay GSC.
Sure, we'll take it to a popular vote then. Since everybody else on this thread is disagreeing with you, I think it's fair to say that we should keep with the current rules.
 
That's because it was too offensive. RBY is more popular than GSC despite having more bugs, less balance and less viable pokes because it has a better pace.

Forum vote wouldn't really achieve anything. Forum-goers for the most part reflect the views of the old-timers on the boards because that's who they learn from.

When we talk about getting the old metas more active, it's not the regular forum goers we need to target because they already play. It's about getting people from other gens interested, and the people who randomly ladder in these old gens every now and then but dont go on the forums (they constitute the majority of the playerbase) to be more active and enter tourneys.


The lefties favouritism here is just familiarity. If GSC was always item clause and I was advocating lefties spam I'd probably get responses about how I shouldn't try to undo a decade of history, and how lefties spam makes offensive teams unviable or nerfs spikes or something like that.

What I'm saying is that item clause GSC would be more appealing to people who don't play GSC than lefties GSC. It's faster, more official, and allows for more diversity. Not just in item selection, but thief would add a new sub meta a long with spikes, bait-exploding etc.
 

Isa

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I thought you didn't like rules or bans that were based around arbitrary concepts such as enjoyment. Also, if we go by official tournament rules, let's make it three Pokemon per party as well at level 50-55, with a maximum combined level of 155! (It's fun being devil's advocate.)
http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Rule_variants#In_tournaments_2

Even if GSC would become faster-paced (not saying it would, or wouldn't), people would still hesitate to play it just like they hesitate to play ADV, or HGSS - it's not as much about the quality of the metagame, rather than the fact that it's no longer the most recent addition to the series. I don't like it at all, I'd love to have more players in RBY, GSC and ADV in particular (especially given the somewhat frequent statements about how ADV OU was the best metagame) but that's the way it is.
 
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Bedschibaer

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Clearly emphasising its unique qualities isn't working because it is easily the least popular gen. People like fast paced metas. It'd still be slow sure, but it'd be faster, more official and more diverse.
I can't talk for everyone here, but GSC is played BECAUSE it's slower paced, at least for me. If i want to play faster paced, or more speed based metas i play the newer ones. There are people who like slow metas, there are people who like "stallier" metas. And if those people are not as many as the ones who like fast paced metas, well, that's just the way it is.

>it'd be faster
barely, 50 turns of who will win the spikes war is IMO not really fast paced
>more official
elaborate
>more diverse
not at all, ALL metagames are centralized towards certain things, and seeing lefties lax and thick club wak on every team is not really diverse imo. You would still see the same mons on every team, it's just that 4 of them won't use the best suitable item. And the whole thing with the thief meta won't work like i think you imagine it. Nobody will leave their Lax or Wak in on the common thief users, but switch in something that doesn't care about it's item, so it would just migrate to a switching around of "useless" (or at least barely useful, and most of the time luck based) items.
 
Let's take a step back from the effect that Item Clause would have on GSC OU and address what I believe is a fundamental misconception of the OP, and which is even expressed clearly in the thread's title: that rules are there to make the game more popular.

A real-world example of this (and I am not making this up, Google it if you don't believe me). About ten years ago, Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, football's world governing body, suggested that women footballers should wear shorter, tighter shorts while they play, "to create a more female aesthetic, and to increase interest among the male demographic". Needless to say, this was a pretty controversial thing to say. Blatter came in for some heavy criticism. Obviously his suggestion was incredibly sexist, but that's not the point.

The point is that the rule change wouldn't have improved the game, only its popularity, and even that would have come at the expense of being taken seriously. My concern is the same here. If we start arbitrarily changing rules "to increase popularity", then there comes a point when people start to question whether we are taking the metagame seriously, or just trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Do we want our metagames to be as good as possible, or as popular as possible? Do we want them to be like Stanley Kubrick films, or Michael Bay films? Personally I believe the former wins every time.
 
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This is what I don't like about Smogon to be honest. It would be all well and good if the old-timers constituted the majority of the playerbase, but the reality is probably 90% of people who currently play RBY and GSC weren't around in the old days. I just don't see why 90% of the playerbase should have to play by rules governed by like the 3-4 old timers who still pay GSC.
New players can also be interested in jumping into a metagame with well-refined strategies (as opposed to the virgin metagame you'd be suggesting) and it's always cool to know that you can dig into the past and find 2004 warstories that are relevant to your very metagame. Not just for old-timers.

What I'm trying to say is that it's not just familiarity with Lefties nor just the inertia of tradition—a metagame with a history plays different for everyone. You propose to both take away this historic quality from the GSC metagame and the only metagame that runs at such a strategic, incremental pace. And what for? To chase the shadow of a "theft game"? To "popularize" GSC based on reasoning that's tenuous at best? I really can't believe that your proposal is based on any real knowledge of what the GSC metagame is like, what it would be like, or what the player base wants.
 

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