Evasion.

[Hipmonlee]

These moves really arent good. They may be a threat with Baton Pass, but tbh baton pass teams seem like they could use a boost in DP.

Anyway, the point is Double Team is only useful if your opponent misses you twice. As you lose a turn by using DT, you need your opponent to lose two turns for it to pay off.

If you use DT on a turn your opponent switches, then the pokemon they switch to would have to 4hko you for DT to be worthwhile on average. And think about it, if your opponent is countering your pokemon with something that can only 4hko you, then there is probably little chance you can do anything to it, and will probably have to switch.

The exception to this is situations where 1 miss causes your opponent to gain just enough HP so that you need an additional turn to KO. I dont think these situations are a big deal.

Also remember that if you have DT and sub or recover, you only have 2 other moves. There arent a lot of pokemon that sweep with only two moves. I mean sub DTers are basically restricted to rocks, grounds, steels, Breloom, Clefable or ice types on hail teams. It's a small enough group that you should be able to adjust your team to be able to cope.

These moves are practical in only very obscure situations IMO. I really dont think they ought to be banned.

Have a nice day.

 

[Aldaron]

Heh, just as I am individually against OHKO moves yet support their testing, I am against Evasion, yet I support its testing.

Evasion moves could balance the metagame by making various UU and BL Pokemon more feasible, like perhaps Double Team Cacturne in Sand or something else like that.

Definite support for testing.

 

[Mekkah]

Yeah, I'd like to see Double Team tested, whether or not banned on Baton Passers.

 

[imperfectluck]

First, let's take a look at what counters Evasion.

After brainstorming on IRC, we came up with 100% hit moves, Perish Song, Haze, Defog, Roar, Whirlwind, Snatch, Sweet Scent, No Guard, Psych Up, and faster Taunts.

100% hit moves all have notoriously low BP, with the exception of Aura Sphere, which is learned by 2 Pokemon in OU, Lucario and Togekiss. There's also Yawn, but Yawn is nullified by Baton Pass, and has a small pool of learners in OU to choose from (Hippowdon, Togekiss, Snorlax, Vaporeon, Jolteon, and Kingdra.)

Perish Song is limited to Celebi and Gengar in OU, and the only BL to commonly use it is Mismagius.

Haze is learned by Milotic, Tentacruel, Dragonite, Vaporeon, and Gengar, as well as Weezing and Crobat in BL that could possibly use it on its regular sets.

Defog ignores evasion modifiers, and has a fairly large pool of learners, but as a move not currently used in the metagame, its rise in order to counter DT would indicate a level of centralization (although I am unable to predict how popular Defog would be.) All Defog users, though, tend to be of the flying type, and share a couple of critical common weaknesses. Sweet Scent is limited to mostly Grass types, not a single one of them OU.

Roar and Whirlwind are capable of missing, so all it takes after that is for the DT user to BP out to a counter until it misses once or keep attacking the pseudohazer and wearing it out.

Snatch does nothing but turn both sides into possible Evasion abusers, and once again has quite a limited pool of users available for using it. As another move that is almost never seen, I think that the rise of Snatch (theoretically) would be another measure of how overcentralized Evasion would be to the metagame. Like many of Evasion's counters, too, Snatch can be avoided through judicious use of the move Taunt.

No Guard, obviously, counters Evasion quite well, however this trait is limited only to Machamp. Let's have every single team carry No Guard Machamp!

Psych Up makes the game into a luckfest... when both Pokemon have 6 DTs and are hitting each other with only 33% accuracy, I believe it's safe to say that all skill is getting thrown out the window.

Taunt, unfortunately, can miss as well, and unless you already have the Taunt user out vs. a Double Teamer, good luck trying to Taunt it, it's in the same boat as Roar/Whirlwind... not to mention that if you're not faster, they'll just start attacking you or BP out. Taunt does have a more versatile pool of Pokemon to choose from than the rest, but remember that Taunt can be Taunted...

Most all of the counters can be Taunted by Pokemon such as Gliscor, while others have notorious Electric weaks to be exploited by the likes of Zapdos. Not only that, many of these options are limited to an extremely small pool of useable Pokemon, therefore Evasion would cause extreme centralization in the metagame as the regular methods that most teams employ (attacks) are reduced to mere dice rolls on whether or not they'll hit. Hip mentions that you need two misses from one DT to gain from it, but actually I think just by getting one miss, DT has paid for itself, and DT gets its maximum value out of just one DT anyways. Considering that there's a 51% chance for an attack that was originally 100% accurate to miss at least once in two attacks after a DT, I'd say that DT has a decent payout that only increases over time as more and more attacks miss. No Guard Machamp is perhaps a true counter, but forcing every team to use No Guard Machamp would be a good indication that Evasion is shaping the metagame in such a way that it would be uncompetitive to not have No Guard Machamp on your team, a measure of true centralization. Unban it if must be for testing, but due to the few and far between "counters" to Evasion, I'm confident that its overcentralizing factors will leave it banned.

 

[chaos]

I have reopened all discussion topics on the grounds that they have discussion of the subject and not necessarily posts that just say "i wanna test" - we're figuring out the order of tests in Order of Operations topic.

 

[X-Act]

There are other moves that are actually designed as being 100% counters to Double Team. These are Foresight, Odor Sleuth and Miracle Eye. These moves always hit and nullify the foe's efforts to increase evasion.

Just as people use Rapid Spinners just to counter Spikes and Stealth Rock, why not have a Foresighter just to counter Double Team?

The Unaware ability ignores accuracy and evasion modifiers of the foe as well, although sadly Bibarel is a bit frail to be able to use this to its advantage.

There's also Pain Split that 'does damage' and ignores accuracy modifiers.

Regarding perfect accuracy moves, most of them have only 60 base power... which would be perfect for Technician Pokemon. Technician Scyther has Aerial Ace with STAB. Technician Ambipom has Nasty Plot, Swift and Shock Wave, and so does Persian.

You shouldn't only consider Pokemon that are in OU. You should consider also Pokemon that are not OU but that would become viable in a Double Team metagame. Uxie, for instance, would be quite nice since it's got Yawn, something Cresselia can't claim. Swampert has Foresight. Snorlax, Donphan and Arcanine have Odor Sleuth.

I believe there are quite a few counters to Double Team if we wanted to... maybe even more counters than other strategies. So yeah, why not give it a try?

 

[jrrrrrrr]

The question here isn't "are they stoppable?", it's "how much do we want the random number generator to decide our matches?". Someone (I believe it was dragontamer but I'm not 100% sure) earlier posted something regarding how defense boosting moves are actually superior to Double Team statistically. While this may be true in the long run, there are cases where it will not be true. Defense boosting moves can be countered by phazers, and are not learned by nearly every pokemon. Double Team is learned by a ton of things, and as ipl said, the benefits of using it are apparent immediately. When you switch in a counter to a DTer, instead of trying to KO it, your first priority instead becomes forcing it to switch. It just changes the mindset of how we play the game, so it is very difficult to theorymon about. But, I feel that since it not only changes the way the game is played AND makes it more influenced by luck, it is a bad thing. There are cases where a DT user may not be given an advantage because of it, but I am personally more concerned about the cases where their luck does influence the match.

We just banned Wobbuffet because it takes no skill to use effectively, and this would take us in the opposite direction.

Just as people use Rapid Spinners just to counter Spikes and Stealth Rock, why not have a Foresighter just to counter Double Team?

The difference is that you can make teams that aren't weak to Spikes and Stealth Rock. Double Team affects all opposing teams equally. You don't need a Rapid Spinner to counter spikes, yet you would need a Foresighter to counter Double Team (unless you are lucky).

 

[Aeroblacktyl]

I guess you can sort of count Toxic Spikes as a counter. That pretty much assures that non Steel/Poison grounded Pokes won't be sitting around to DT/Sub stall, and if they wanted to DT/Rest stall, then it's not really sweeping anything tbh. Of course if you start losing cause you missed all your EVs against a Double Team Suicune/Zapdos/Spiritomb team, then I suppose we could have a little problem.

But in an RS Double Team allowed tournament, most people just kind of rather flat out attack instead of wasting time trying to set up Double Teams and Substitute. Of course DP is different, but the metagame could be too fast to actually set something up with DP and expect to get somewhere with it. Should it switch back to a stall thing, then it's just two regular stall teams going at each other for the most part.

P.S. Double Team Garchomp

 

[CardsOfTheHeart]

Double Team Garchomp; that would be annoying as hell to face! Wait, why am I feeling deja vu...?

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, Evasion moves inherently take some control away from the opponent and give it to a random number generator. At their most basic form, Evasion moves raise the amount of luck needed by your opponent to hit you.

So they can be countered? I don't care.
People probably wouldn't use them, anyway? That matters to me because...?

It's an element of luck that I don't want around.

 

[Firestorm]

I think they DT and Minimize should be tested again.

It's an element of luck that is controlled by the user. It's a trade-off. It's a gamble by the user. Should I decrease the chance of my opponent hitting or should I increase my defenses for a more consistent decrease in damage taken? It's also a pressuring attack because the opponent will have to act quickly before Double Team can become too much of a bother. This form of luck is completely controlled and I would say there's definitely strategy and thought behind using it.

If it's tested, we should not put a restriction on Baton Pass.

 

[Mekkah]

If it's tested, we should not put a restriction on Baton Pass.

A huge problem with using Double Team is that it's a fourth of your moveslot that does not cover any opponents and does not restore your health. DP is four-moveslot-help heavy as it is. Baton Pass lifts that burden, making it much more threatening all at once.

 

[X-Act]

"It's an element of luck that I don't want around."

"I am personally more concerned about the cases where their luck does influence the match."

Sure, and you use Stone Edge, having a 20% chance of missing and a 12.5% chance of doing double damage. And you use Ice Beam which makes your opponent immobile 10% of the time. And, sometimes, without any input from any of the players whatsoever, your bad opponent OHKOes you with a special critical hit after you have used 3 Calm Minds. So you want _this_ element of luck around, and you don't want "Double Team" luck? Sorry, but I don't buy it.

I've said this elsewhere, and I'll say it again: Pokemon is not a game of pure skill. So stop trying to make it one, because you simply can't. Luck is inherently part in the game, and you can't simply say "I accept Critical Hit luck, moves that don't hit luck and Sand Veil evasion luck, but I don't accept Double Team luck".

Do you know who wins in a Pokemon battle pitting two equally great players against each other? I hope you know that the answer is "the luckier one".

 

[Tangerine]

I don't see how those arguments are "invalid" because Pokemon is not a game of pure skill.

Just because Pokemon is a game of pure skill doesn't mean we need to decrease the skill inherent in the game.

Moves like DT and OHKO moves are moves that promote luck and no inherent skill that the opponent can't do anything about without overpreparing for it (seriously who the fuck uses haze now, I have seen the move haze used maybe ONCE in all the time I have battled)
'
Sure, they are "built in the game" but that's the point of banning them in the first place right? That's the point of the metagame right? To make it competitive? If we're going to unban stuff in the name of luck then why do we have to keep the facade that we still have OU/UU around really and not just play by Nintendo rules or something? Sure this is a very poor argument, but that's how I feel about the entire situation that's going on here.

 

[X-Act]

Thing is, people seem that they don't want to counter luck. They just want to ban it.

It's like saying "hey, Breloom sweeps my whole team, so please don't use Breloom." The guy has ways and means of countering Breloom, but he doesn't give a damn; he just wants Breloom banned.

Likewise, if there are ways and means of countering evasion (and I argue that there are more ways of countering evasion than there are ways of countering Spikes/Toxic Spikes/Stealth Rock), then we should allow them. Or at least test them.

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

Maybe that'd be fine in a metagame where it was easily possible to counter all major threats with 5-6 pokemon. But in DP you have enough trouble covering threats as it is. Forcing you to "counter" evasion more than likely frees up another hole in your team.

Plus as the majority has already mentioned, this in no way promotes skill whatsoever. As you clearly pointed out, there are already enough elements of luck in the game. Why add more?

 

[CardsOfTheHeart]

I've said this elsewhere, and I'll say it again: Pokemon is not a game of pure skill. So stop trying to make it one, because you simply can't. Luck is inherently part in the game, and you can't simply say "I accept Critical Hit luck, moves that don't hit luck and Sand Veil evasion luck, but I don't accept Double Team luck".

I'm sorry, but this statement looks like a straw man. I can't speak for everyone else, but I'd like to clarify my position on this.

Yes, Pokemon is not a game of pure skill, but I, for one, would like to control luck and promote skill whenever possible.

However, there are some elements of luck that are just plain out of our control, and we have to accept them.

'Critical Hit luck' - part of the game's mechanics and we can't change those without changing a fundamental part of the game we play

'Moves that don't hit luck' - part of the mechanics of the moves and it would be unreasonable to ban every single move with less than 100% accuracy

'Sand Veil evasion luck' - this could be controllable if Sandslash, Cacturne, and Garchomp had another ability; otherwise we'd have to ban Sandslash, Cacturne and Garchomp, and probably everyone would agree that the first two don't deserve to be banned

'Double Team luck', on the other hand, is contained within a few moves--they are completely in our control. What's wrong with trying to ban them? What's wrong with trying to control an element of luck in a game played to promote skill?

 

[jrrrrrrr]

Sure, and you use Stone Edge, having a 20% chance of missing and a 12.5% chance of doing double damage. And you use Ice Beam which makes your opponent immobile 10% of the time. And, sometimes, without any input from any of the players whatsoever, your bad opponent OHKOes you with a special critical hit after you have used 3 Calm Minds. So you want _this_ element of luck around, and you don't want "Double Team" luck? Sorry, but I don't buy it.

I've said this elsewhere, and I'll say it again: Pokemon is not a game of pure skill. So stop trying to make it one, because you simply can't. Luck is inherently part in the game, and you can't simply say "I accept Critical Hit luck, moves that don't hit luck and Sand Veil evasion luck, but I don't accept Double Team luck".

Do you know who wins in a Pokemon battle pitting two equally great players against each other? I hope you know that the answer is "the luckier one".

The "moves missing" luck argument is ignoring one key factor: you are using it knowing that there is risk involved. When your opponent uses Double Team, it is taking the risk/luck factor out of your hands. This game of "information management" (a term that I don't really like but other people use) suddenly gives you a lot less to work with. You could use Stone Edge knowing that a miss could cost you the game, but when your opponent uses Double Team they are influencing almost everything that you can do before you even get a chance to do it.

I agree with you on the second part, Pokemon is not a game of pure skill and luck is a part of the game. However, I also feel that in a competitive setting like the one that Smogon provides, we should be aiming at reducing luck in any reasonable way in order to promote skill.

Even if there was a such thing as two players who are exactly equally as good, it would come down to team matchup and then "prediction" first before luck decided it more often than not. If you consider having the right team for the situation luck, then I guess you would be right about that.

A huge problem with using Double Team is that it's a fourth of your moveslot that does not cover any opponents and does not restore your health. DP is four-moveslot-help heavy as it is. Baton Pass lifts that burden, making it much more threatening all at once.

Double Team covers all of your opponents. A set that would use Double Team isn't using it to beat one of its counters, they are using it to beat everything regardless of what comes in.

Thing is, people seem that they don't want to counter luck. They just want to ban it.

It's like saying "hey, Breloom sweeps my whole team, so please don't use Breloom." The guy has ways and means of countering Breloom, but he doesn't give a damn; he just wants Breloom banned.

Likewise, if there are ways and means of countering evasion (and I argue that there are more ways of countering evasion than there are ways of countering Spikes/Toxic Spikes/Stealth Rock), then we should allow them. Or at least test them.

This is assuming that there is a reasonable way of countering luck, which as ipl touched on are few and far between. If you try to counter luck, you are freeing up holes in your team for something else to come in and sweep. The Breloom example doesn't work because countering Breloom is reasonable to do, and it will help you to cover other threats. If you can beat Breloom, you are also helping yourself against Machamp, Hitmontop, and to a lesser extent Heracross etc. If you "counter" evasion, by using Foresight for example, you are hurting yourself against everything else because there are no other situations where it would be useful.

Spikes/TSpikes/SR would help a little to beat DTers, but not all of them. Gliscor and Zapdos are both immune to both spikes and have Roost to deal with SR damage, for example, and both of which can Baton Pass out etc.

 

[Cathy]

Do you know who wins in a Pokemon battle pitting two equally great players against each other? I hope you know that the answer is "the luckier one".

This is wrong, because there is something even more important than luck in deciding who wins between two equally good players. Namely, the teams they use. The initial state of pokemon actually decides a lot. Any future tournament format should either add in some notion of "counterpicking" teams, or involve a lot of rounds (as in a Swiss tournament).

What I said about evasion before is still relevant:

Skill and statistical elements are not opposing factors. Lots of people talk about minimising luck, but a large amount of the skill in pokemon comes from manipulating probability in your favour: skill can come from the statistical elements. A lot of games work like this (imagine talk of trying to minimise luck in Poker!). It's the statistical elements that make pokemon the sort of game it is, and there are statistical elements at all levels of the game -- right down to the damage formula. It's what gives the game its character, not something to be minimised.

This means that any single match does not prove that one player is better than another, but that is just a fact of pokemon. Even without statistical elements, this exists because of team match ups, and those alone are a reason why single elimination tournaments are not workable.

I don't think Double Team should be banned, and it's even sketchy to talk about it centralising the game. Let's suppose we unbanned Double Team and now one pokemon is totally broken. Do we ban Double Team or that pokemon? It would probably be simpler to ban the pokemon, but that remains to be seen. It's quite possible that it won't cause any centralisation in the first place; this can in fact be measured.

(The last time I posted this, Jumpman gave a confusing response about poker, so just to be clear: I agree that poker is skill in the long run. That's the whole point of this post.)

 

[X-Act]

This is wrong, because there is something even more important than luck in deciding who wins between two equally good players. Namely, the teams they use. The initial state of pokemon actually decides a lot.

Well, isn't that luck?

Any future tournament format should either add in some notion of "counterpicking" teams, or involve a lot of rounds (as in a Swiss tournament).

I agree with the 'involve a lot of rounds' argument.

 

[Ancien Régime]

You won't be using OHKOs on glass cannon Pokemon; you'll be using them on bulky Pokemon that can afford to miss.

Why am I posting that here? Because I think this argument applies even more so to Double Team. Again, we're not talking about glass cannons here, we're talking about pokemon like Cresselia, Uxie, Suicune, who can not only use Double Team but tank hits and often supplement Double Team with boosts of their own, or pass the Double Teams to someone who needs the - Suicune could have Double Team/Calm Mind/Rest/Surf (which I feel is just as viable as Crocune), Umbreon could simply pass the boosts, while Yawning or Taunting any effort to deal with the boosts, Cresselia can do the same as Suicune with more coverage, and the list goes on.


Basically, there is no doubt that we would be forced to use certain uncommon to rare moves on not so viable pokemon in order to "counter" Double Team.

(The last time I posted this, Jumpman gave a confusing response about poker, so just to be clear: I agree that poker is skill in the long run. That's the whole point of this post.)

I think there is so much less skill inherent to poker than Pokemon that the comparison is borderline ridiculous. In poker, you have no control over your resources other than to "redo" the process that got you the initial resources. Both are products of "chance", not skill. In Pokemon, you choose what "cards" you want to play with. "Prediction" in poker is completely different, in Pokemon "prediction" is simply playing based on what would be the "safest" move for your opponent, and reacting to it. There is nothing equivalent in poker. Finally, there's no "unifying team strategy" in poker like there would be with a good pokemon player - you simply make the best with the hand you're dealt.

I'd say Pokemon contains a little bit of luck, but poker is based on luck.

 

[Cathy]

Your team in pokemon is analogous to your chip pile in poker, not to the cards.

 

[obi]

The first part of this is somewhat of a repost from an old Double Team thread.

I don't think we should "test everything" in this sense. I know a lot of people are going to try to call my a hypocrite for this and quote me out of context, so let me say right now that people who do so are not understanding my position. We should test anything we want to ban if we're banning it because it's too powerful.

My opposition to Double Team, Minimize, and several other things is not because I think they are too powerful, but because they maximize the effect of luck, thus minimizing the effect of 'skill'. We don't need to test anything to convince me because my position isn't one of something being overpowered. I am opposed to the idea of evasion even in the abstract.

This is why I don't have a problem banning BrightPowder, even if it would rarely see use.

For those of you advocating testing, what should we be looking for in these tests? This because it's an important question to ask. If you favor testing, what information could come from testing that would convince you that evasion should be banned? What information would come from testing that would convince you it shouldn't? If you cannot answer this question, then perhaps your methodology is unfalsifiable, and thus irrelevant to any logical debate. If you suspect there will be centralization, then that's something you can see in testing. If you just want to see how "fun" it makes the game (which we must accept as valid reasoning if that is a major factor in why Wobbuffet was banned), then you can see that by playing a few games with it. But my argument, that it increases luck, is incredibly difficult to test, which is why I don't see a need to do so. It's quite possible Double Team won't be overpowering or centralizing, but I really don't care about that because that's not the root of my objection.

Sure, and you use Stone Edge, having a 20% chance of missing and a 12.5% chance of doing double damage.

I almost never use Stone Edge, although I admit I do sometimes use it over Rock Slide because neither is a 100% accurate solution. In ADV, however, I used Hidden Power Rock Tyranitar. I've even used Hidden Power Bug Heracross because I didn't want to miss with Megahorn.

And you use Ice Beam which makes your opponent immobile 10% of the time.

I would use Ice Beam even if it had a 0% chance to freeze. No one would use Double Team if it didn't have a chance to make the opponent miss (obviously).

And, sometimes, without any input from any of the players whatsoever, your bad opponent OHKOes you with a special critical hit after you have used 3 Calm Minds. So you want _this_ element of luck around, and you don't want "Double Team" luck? Sorry, but I don't buy it.

The difference is that there is only one way to 'ban' critical hits, and that is by forcing all Pokemon to have Recycle @ Leppa Berry with no variable damaging moves and no Spit Up (Recycle would also have to be in your first slot or you could get Recycle to 1 PP, lose the PP in your first slot move after using up your Leppa, and then when you Recycle you'll run out of PP in Recycle as the Leppa is used up on your first slot). Otherwise, matches could eventually come down to Struggle. You can ban Double Team by banning Double Team.

I've said this elsewhere, and I'll say it again: Pokemon is not a game of pure skill. So stop trying to make it one, because you simply can't. Luck is inherently part in the game, and you can't simply say "I accept Critical Hit luck, moves that don't hit luck and Sand Veil evasion luck, but I don't accept Double Team luck".

Critical hits are unbannable; evasion isn't. Just because there is some luck in the game doesn't mean we shouldn't take steps to minimize it. You are trying to deny a benefit because it's not a perfect benefit, which is analogous to disbanding the police because some criminals will never get caught. Murders are inherently part of life, deal with it.

Do you know who wins in a Pokemon battle pitting two equally great players against each other? I hope you know that the answer is "the luckier one".

And in a game of two players with one having slightly more skill than the other, I would like the winner to be "the more skilled one" as much as possible. Injecting luck makes the answer "the luckier one" for larger gaps of skill. Luck is an equalizer of skill.

Imagine I am in a tournament and I am matched up against someone I consider to be a better player than myself. On the average, they will beat me. Therefore, I have to take advantage of the short-term nature of battles. The best way to do this is to inject luck into the equation. I don't have to make a team that wins on the average, I have to make a team that gives me the lowest chance to lose. If they are a better player than I am, the best way to do this is to increase the level of luck.

 

[Hipmonlee]

Ok, long post time.

ipl, you overlooked two of the most useful counters for Double Team. Ignoring it, or boosting stats along side of it. Stat boosters will overtake evasion, and usually you can use them to boost your attack as well as your defense (DT Suicune is not going to attack you physically. And ignoring DT is not a bad idea either. You say DT has a 51% chance (actually its a 43.75% chance) of paying for itself in two turns, but all that actually means is you have a 56.25% chance of wasting your time.

My opposition to Double Team, Minimize, and several other things is not because I think they are too powerful, but because they maximize the effect of luck

The counter to this argument is that we shouldnt ban things because they maximise the effect of luck. Luck and Skill are not mutually exclusive.

Can you not imagine a situation where a move that on the face of it appears to involve a lot of luck actually increases the chances a good player will succeed over a poorer player? Honestly, I have no reason at all to think that this is not the case with double team.

Moves like DT and OHKO moves are moves that promote luck and no inherent skill

Are you sure that DT doesnt promote skill. I assure you that using evasion is not as simple as you may think. Arguably baton passing it is too easy, but otherwise, DT is a very hard move to use effectively (I'll get back to BP later). There may indeed be situations where a pokemon will use DT against me and sweep me because I just cant hit it, but tbh I dont think that is as likely as a pokemon sweeping me because it CHes at a vital moment against my counter. If my less skilled opponents were going to use DT against me, then I would generally be glad, because I would expect my chance of winning to increase. Double Team is not a good move.

Why am I posting that here? Because I think this argument applies even more so to Double Team. Again, we're not talking about glass cannons here, we're talking about pokemon like Cresselia, Uxie, Suicune, who can not only use Double Team but tank hits and often supplement Double Team with boosts of their own, or pass the Double Teams to someone who needs the - Suicune could have Double Team/Calm Mind/Rest/Surf (which I feel is just as viable as Crocune), Umbreon could simply pass the boosts, while Yawning or Taunting any effort to deal with the boosts, Cresselia can do the same as Suicune with more coverage, and the list goes on.

If something is just as viable as something else that is already legal, then it should not be banned, you should have to say that it is more viable. I think only situationally will DT Cune be advantageous over Crocune. Basically, the difference here is that often DT Cune will have to sacrifice its CM boosts while it rests, because it will rarely get the chance to set up it's CMs and DTs before having to do so, but it also has the advantage of being able to boost its defenses. The choice here is just adding depth to the game.

And you could say "Hey, DT Cune is adding luck to pokemon" but in this case it is replacing Sleep Talk, which is another luck heavy attack. It's not really a disadvantage Resting if Sleep Talk selects the perfect move every time. Of course this will not be the case every time, but I think that non BP uses of Double Team are actually very few and far between. I made a thread once, where I was trying to come up with DTer sets, and IMO Suicune was by far the most viable.

Cresselia and Uxie are both terrible DTers that will not be used except by poor players. They wont have better coverage than Suicune, they will just have Ice Beam (a move Suicune could also have if it didnt have better options), Maybe Charge Beam I suppose. But they both will have to switch as soon as they see Tyranitar, just as if they didnt DT. Except if they had attacked instead, they might have scored a freeze.

Now about Baton Pass. The strongest anti DT arguments in this thread are about Baton Pass. I am unsure at this point if this combination would be broken or not.

So firstly this is no reason to ban Minimize. Only Drifblim or Smeargle can pass it, and I really strongly doubt either one is broken.

Secondly when you have a combination of moves that are broken only together, then how do you know that it is DT that is the problem. I mean I have no expectation that DT could be unbanned and BP banned, but I am just throwing that out there. But honestly I see no reason why the combination of these moves couldnt be banned. It's not really a complicated solution at all.

But lets look at BPing anyway. Basically the strength of passing is opening an extra slot on the recievers moveset. This allows Rocks, Grounds and Steels to have 3 attacking moves and substitute or a stat boosting move and substitute. Or anything to just carry its standard set, but with a 25% chance of being missed each turn. The latter case you should be able to ignore. Remember you got a free move against the passer as it DTed and another move as it passed. Almost all the time when you BP to a pokemon without sub the benefit will not match the cost.

So that leaves Rocks, Grounds and Steels that you have to worry about. Of course there is a huge range of options among those pokemon, but I think when you look at it this way, it hardly seems broken.

Also look at the likely supects for passing. In approximate order of likeliness they are:
Celebi
Zapdos
Gliscor
Vaporeon
Glaceon
Umbreon
Scizor
Jolteon

Perish Song Celebi counters all of these easily, with the exception of Scizor who is OHKOed by any fire attack you might have on your team. So by having a quick pokemon with a fire move and Perish Song Celebi, then you should have no problem with DT. But of course not all teams should have to carry Celebi, so lets look at the individual cases.

Jolteon will find setting up extremely difficult. It hasnt got effective recovery, and it is fragile.
Scizor is OHKOed by almost all fire moves.

Glaceon will probably be only seen on ice teams, but it hits hard and has good defense. But pokemon on hail teams tend to rely on hail, and indirect damage. Because the DT recipient will try to avoid switching, if you send TTar against Glaceon once you see it BP, it will have to BP to Abomasnow. Abomasnow can swords dance, but you should be able to deal with it, especially since it will have had to have switch in some time earlier. Again Glaceon relies on Wish for healing, it's also weak to stealth rock.

Umbreon can not attack effectively, so you always know you are pretty safe switching in against it, and setting anything up.

Vaporeon is pretty strong, but again relies on wish for recovery, which is not all that reliable. It pretty much survives at least one hit of anything, and can do decent damage with surf.

Gliscor is probably going to be hard to stop BPing. But if it is passing to Grounds or Rocks it will have repeated weakness issues. To Steels the biggest issue will be Lucario. But if you are wary of the fact that he is a likely recipient, as he does not have great defenses, with a little preplanning you should be able to cope.

Zapdos is fast enough to get its BP off pretty easily. It hits hard and it has good defenses and roost. If it is BPing with Roost, it can only use Thunderbolt as its attack so it is limited in that regard. Because of its ice and rock weaknesses, it will probably pass to Steels or Rock types. If you can send in a Ground type against Zapdos, you should have countered the recipient by default.

Celebi is such a versatile pokemon you probably wont be able to rely on stopping its BP getting away. But it wont hit you too hard, (especially with only one attack at its disposal). Skarmory should be pretty useful in this case. The likely recipients are usually physical, and you have a 75% chance of getting rid of them before they even come out. Then if they try and sub you can have another go.

I mean I havent suggested a lot of options here, but there are so many just common practice solutions that I didnt really feel the need. These moves seem pretty threatening from a distance but when you actually try them out the mathmatics of them just doesnt work out all that well.

Have a nice day.

 

[obi]

The counter to this argument is that we shouldnt ban things because they maximise the effect of luck. Luck and Skill are not mutually exclusive.

Can you not imagine a situation where a move that on the face of it appears to involve a lot of luck actually increases the chances a good player will succeed over a poorer player? Honestly, I have no reason at all to think that this is not the case with double team.

Let's consider a game with absolutely no luck (for instance, chess). In such a game, the more skilled player should always win. Now I know that when grandmasters have tournaments, the score is not always 7-0 in favor of one (or however many games they play). This is because skill is best defined not as a single value, but a range of values (which is why I like Glicko). In chess, there are some people who will never beat me until they get much better, and there are some people I will never beat. This is because of a gap in skill.

In Pokemon, as long as they understand the basics of play, they can beat anyone, even with a team disadvantage. This is because Pokemon contains elements of luck.

 

[Hipmonlee]

Ok, there are two points I think you could be making.

One is that if you added DT to Chess, then it would result in making it more likely that a poor player would beat a good player, which is true. But that is introducing luck to a no luck situation. In Pokemon there is already luck, I am not convinced that adding DT makes it more likely that a player would lose to a lesser opponent.

The other is that you are trying to say that luck and skill are mutually exclusive. But I dont think that that is proven by your post. Of course a game with no luck aspect will not be decided by luck.

Allowing evasion adds both a luck aspect and a strategic aspect to Pokemon. Sometimes you will miss more than 1 in 4 times, but you also have to be able to weigh up the benefits of using Double Team against using another move. Regardless of what luck it might add to a battle it also adds depth to the game which allows for greater potential differentiation of players skills.

Have a nice day.