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Hello, it would be appear a ban for Baton Pass in DPP PU has been implemented, since whatever council eons ago banned it and just never had the ban actually go on the servers until now. At least for PU Baton Pass has been a fine element for many years. It hasn't had any obscene tournament runs since we have a lot of viable Choice Scarf users and the powerful Purugly keeping fringe tactics at bay typically. Glaceon (main dry pass user) probably sees more usage than Baton Pass cheese entirely. Seeing as Baton Pass hasn't been problematic in the past few years or so, I'd say it (this odd scenario) can be considered a very long suspect test in which Baton Pass is certainly fine with its previous implementation of one user and not able to pass both speed and another stat.
I'd used it in the past in DPP PU in tournaments occasionally and its never really been an issue, its a very fringe strategy when trying to actually pass stuff that imo isn't super consistent or powerful, and its never come across as broken (or had anyone really raise eyebrows at seeing baton pass used and go wait isn't that banned???? either). some dry pass use is cool too as mentioned. Personal opinion is i'd support just leaving it alone and not trying to transitively copy this in this scenario.
The tier is at good state. I dont see reason to change it and the proposal does not sound like it's making the tier more enjoyable/playable/better by any means
In all honesty, I hadn't really looked into baton pass in dpp pu closely until this post. It is not a common strategy in tours currently. Dry pass is of course fine and a nice option to keep on glaceon if possible. Looking into some of the options available we have:
Nasty Plot + Baton Pass:mr-mime::togetic: Calm Mind + Baton Pass:mr-mime::xatu::solrock::lunatone:
I'm not sure I am seeing recipients here that are too hard to handle. DPP PU has no shortage of specially boosting mons available which can typically be handled both defensively and/or revenge killed by faster mons/scarfers/the ever present fake out cats. Most of the mons that look like good recipients already have these moves (misdreavus, xatu, golduck etc) or are fairly slow/revenge killed (glaceon etc.) Camerupt does get rock polish and could potentially be strong with an additional offensive boost but.... we are pushing some fringe viability here and we still have fasters scarfers + fake out + bulky waters to help stop this even if it does get all of the boosts.
Bulk Up + Baton Pass No Viable Users Swords Dance + Baton Pass:mawile::shedinja:
Pass users for physically offensive boosts are much worse (calling sheddy viable is a big stretch with the state of hazards/removal in the tier) and there is no reasonable bu pass user either. Recipients here do seem more potent with some strong rock polish users who resist fake out (rhydon, relicanth) making them harder to revenge kill if they do get the boosts, but pulling this off seems like a tall order and we do have fasters scarfers (golduck + xatu for rhydon, xatu for relicanth) that can revenge kill these at +2. Naturally fast recipients are mostly revenge killable by things like fake out cats and scarfers and/or already have boosting moves and have been fine in the tier (sneasel, zangoose.)
Agility/Rock Polish + Baton Pass :rapidash::lunatone::solrock:
I'd say speed pass likely has the most potential here, but I don't see anything that looks unbeatable with an additional speed boost. Magmar is an interesting idea here since it is very strong offensively and can effectively block fake out with mach punch (being the same priority and +2 magmar being faster than the cats) but we have sturdy enough checks to where this doesn't just win on its own (also note that the pass users here will also naturally draw in bulky waters.) Rampardos also seems scary with a speed boost, but again it is weak to the water types that commonly come in on the pass users and it is slower than scarf xatu. Rampardos' frailty also making it more difficult to get this in to receive the pass. Things like glaceon, lapras and ampharos seem like cool recipients but nothing that can't be handled defensively or revenge killed. Misdreavus with speed is also interesting since it is immune to fake out, but we have solid defensive answers in things like muk and leaf blade bellossom if misdreavus tries to continue boosting after receiving speed.
This is by no means an all inclusive list of options but upon a deeper look into the options available, I support keeping the current implementation of baton pass. This is of course a conversation that could be resumed if baton pass gains more tournament success in the future, but unless that happens I see no reason to change the current state of baton pass. Limiting it to 1 user of baton pass and no speed + additional boosts seems to be sufficient coverage, and the options available seem to be things that the tier can handle without resorting to niche/uncommon options.
Edit: Wanted to +1 what Bughouse said. Congruence with other dpp lowers is good thing and makes it less confusing for the largely overlapping playerbase.
As someone that plays like 20 games a week vs Heysup + some side tour adventure like FL, DPP Low tiers... I never saw it being used.
But looking at the list of mons I think it could be used with moderation in a healthy way.
SOOOOO RULING IS A MESS... each year uses different rules and in some cases even during the same cup.
Dry pass
One boost passer and SPE + other boost is forbiden
Banned
Free
Looking at this pool of mons for boost passing.
Mime has NP
Solrock and Dash have Agility
Solrock and Xatu have CM
Solrock and Glaceon have ID
ZU have mons with Sword Dance but they are truly ass the only relevant * is that yeah you could see Volbeat try to pass Tail Glow.
Mime is the only one I think could be problematic with its good support move pool and speed to pass NP to something like Electabuzz behind a screen for example.
And lead Sub BP Toxic Dash could be cool . Don't see anything broken receiving a agility pass being honest.
For dry passing in general i think its cool, don't see how allowing it would make the game less fun or less competitive. And would be a minor buff to all of those mons that aren't meta giants.
I also think no rules BP is stupid and is a fast and hard NO.
Banning any form of BP to me is waste of a mechanic that when correctly ruled can be a gain to the meta/tier.
Baton Pass Clause.A team cannot have more than one Pokemon with the move Baton Pass. The Pokemon that does have Baton Pass cannot pass a combination of Speed + another stat.
I don't feel like the tier would benefit from freeing baton pass+stats, since this strategy is just straight-up cheese. There's no harm in freeing dry passlike we did in OU, and this could lead to some cools techs/innovations.
So yh, supporting a dry pass unban, but also def agains't a full bp unban / a "can't pass speed + another stat" mode
Basically the history here is that the official DPP lower tiers (i.e. UU and only sort of NU, it wasn't actually "official" during current gen, but is generally treated as official nowadays afaik) got locked into what the old OU clause was because this was implemented at a time where transitivity on these sorts of old gen council actions still applied: Baton Pass Clause.A team cannot have more than one Pokemon with the move Baton Pass. The Pokemon that does have Baton Pass cannot pass a combination of Speed + another stat.
When the DPP OU council later further restricted to drypass, this didn't automatically apply downward onto UU and NU due to the ending of automatic transitivity happening in the meantime. PU was probably exempt from this all along due to clearly not being official current gen, added post hoc. That said, DPP lower tiers have a decent amount of overlapping playerbase and it would probably make the most sense for them all to just use the same clause. Given UU and NU have been using the (old) OU clause that restricts BP somewhat, but not only to drypass, for like 8 years now or something like that, I would think that makes the most sense for PU too.
imo a drypass only restriction isn't really needed in DPP lower tiers. Unrestricted BP was never even broken tbh, and I've certainly never seen restricted BP be broken.
I for starters feel like dpp pu is in a very balanced state right now with nothing OVERTLY broken, because of this I don’t feel like unrestricted baton pass would cause any big issues in the tier, because, honestly even the best baton pass Pokemon aren’t too keen on dropping / altering their normal sets for baton pass.
An unrestricted Baton Pass world
The biggest consequences of a full bp release would be realistically small tweaks to preexisting sets.
Substitute baton pass Rapidash comes to mind as a particularly strong passer who would benefit from the notoriety of its most common set forcing switches. I’m also sure CM Xatu could use Baton Pass over substitute in order to pass along its stats in the face of Sucker Punch. Finally Rock Polish Solrock already has a weak 4th move slot after Eq and Stone Edge so throwing Baton Pass on to maintain momentum, passing the Speed boosts seems like a no brainer. None of these pokemon are particularly wanting for more (except :solrock: Solrock I can’t help that) so I doubt with a full release we see baton pass do much.
A side effect of Baton pass would be the door being open for some pivoting, for example Gorebyss Baton Passing when a water absorb Pokemon comes in, allowing it to bring in a counter like Ampharos or Victreebel. On the more defensive spectrum a Pokémon like Mawile may be able to pivot around with intimidate or a Pokemon like Lopunny can add pivoting into its list of tricks.
TLDR Unrestricted baton pass likely will make little impact so it should be freed.
First of all, thank you for bringing this to our attention sky. Having such an uneven precedent with multiple tours running different rules like Bernardo pointed out is absolutely not ideal for running a consistent tier, and PU leadership intends to hold a vote on this topic this saturday. If you have replays or opinions you've been saving, now is the time to post them!
However, since there is no real precedent and a lack of agreement in the thread about what should happen, we'll be holding this vote a little differently. Normal votes need some kind of status quo to uphold or overturn, but we're not entirely sure what that should be. Instead, we'll be using a ranked choice + runoff voting system, which should more equally weight what we see as four potential compelling options.
1. Full BP Ban
2. Drypass only
3. Restricted BP (1 user per team, you may not boost speed + another stat)
4. Full unban, no restrictions
How this will work is qualified players will first do a ranked choice vote. That means that instead of voting for one favorite option, they will rank the options from most to least desirable, each vote having a corresponding weight. For example, if my order was 2 > 3 > 1 > 4, then Drypass only would receive 4 points, restricted BP would receive 3 points, a full BP ban would receive 2 points, and a full unban would receive 1 point (or something equivalent). After the first stage of voting, the 2 options with the most points would go to a majority wins runoff vote. This is definitely not the normal and may take somewhat longer, but we believe it is the most fair way to truly gauge community preference while not weighting the vote in favor of any option given the aforementioned lack of precedent.
Qualified voters have been pulled from the last 2 years of DPP tournaments. You have to have at least 3 games with 1 win in the DPP PU slot in the last 2 PUPLs, PUCL, PUBD, or the last 2 DPPPLs. We also included the last 2 years of DPP PU Cup semifinalists, the last year of DPP PU Open semifinalists, and the last 2 years of PU Classic finalists.
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This is for me thoughts, not TL stuff. As someone who qualifies to vote from DPP cup and classic finals, I like the shape of the tier but would be pretty afraid to free unrestricted BP into this lower power format. We have a few of the BP-using tools that have coincided with it being broken before like Soundproof Mime and Shedinja, but the bulkiest users have the worst boosting moves and we also lack things like Ingrain, Magic Bounce, or stat-boosted attacks like Stored Power. I also don't love our final sweeper options, almost everything is susceptible to Purugly except Misdreavus or unless you can fit Protect on there which further limits options. I'm hesitant to just fully unban out of the blue, but it really seems like it'd be a manageable option that could steal games but likely wouldn't dominate the meta. Plus, if it did, we could revisit this vote later. Also, I really hate convoluted BP clauses.
I intend to vote Full unban > drypass > full ban > restricted BP
While I see what you are getting at by saying the restricted option makes things more convoluted in a vacuum, I actually think it makes things less confusing in this case. Since the same restriction is applied to dpp uu and nu. It would effectively be a clause with transivity across dpp lowers. (Not that we are actually limited by ban transivity here but that it would have the same result) I think this would make it easier to switch between these tiers as many people like to do and make it easier for new players to understand (learning 1 clause for dpp lowers instead of multiple.)
We probably just see this part differently and that’s ok, but it’s something I wanted to emphasize for other voters/readers!
for what it's worth, the old OU restriction was the clause in effect for DPP PU until very recently when an ancient ban vote was discovered (I think that's what happened at least, based on what sky said in the OP).
example replays from dpp pu in dppppl 1 in 2021 and pupl 6 in 2020 (before this I don't think DPP PU was even a challengeable format, games were challenged in NU or even UU if you go far enough back to where NU didn't have a challengeable format): https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4pu-566625 https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4pu-1139453561 Baton Pass Clause: Limit one Baton Passer, can't pass Spe and other stats simultaneously
A vote for that restriction is basically just to return DPP PU to what it has already been getting played as for at least 6 years (maybe longer).
That OU clause probably never should have been applied to DPP PU as an unofficial tier, but clearly it did get applied. I suspect this is because at the beginning of DPP PU it lacked a challengeable format, and games were played in NU (or even UU), where challenges came with that clause applied.
After the initial round of voting, the top 2 options were a full BP ban and Drypass only. The second round of voting has been opened and I will update this thread with the results and make the initial round of voting on 4 options public when the second vote has concluded.
After the second round of voting, we have a strong win for Drypass Only being the new standard for DPP. For those who did not read Bernado's post, this also happens to be what was run for the 2026 DPP Cup. If any qualified voters missed everything until now, you still have a chance to make your preference seen at the voting link here, and I also compiled a spreadsheet for round 1's ranked choice voting which anyone can view here.
