Double Team and Minimize:Broken or Uncompetitive?

[WildfireXIII]

What I meant with that statement was that if pokemon can become viable due to the fact that they can counter DT then there should be several dozens, if not hundreds more that can also become viable because they can use DT.

Any arguments saying that DT can countered by a list of moves and abilities just plain doesn't work. Countering DT can't be compared to countering Drizzle or BP either, because countering those two is about being able to counter specific threats seen on those types of teams, not 99% of pokemon in the game.

The question of whether or not it's broken or uncompetitive ultimately comes down to whether you think having your attacks get reduced to 75% accuracy or less is broken/uncompetitive.'

edit@ Jibaku:

From what I gather, you are saying to just deal with the lowered accuracy of your attacks and just pummel them and hope that the attacks don't miss. I agree that this is better than using something like Haze to counter it. Like I said in this post, whether DT is broken/uncompetitive ultimately depends on whether somebody thinks having 75% accuracy or less on your attacks is broken/uncompetitive. I was just trying to debunk any claims that DT can be easily countered with Haze and all those other things that people often list that can stop DT.

 

[Joel]

What I meant with that statement was that if pokemon can become viable due to the fact that they can counter DT then there should be several dozens, if not hundreds more that can also become viable because they can use DT.

Any arguments saying that DT can countered by a list of moves and abilities just plain doesn't work. Countering DT can't be compared to countering Drizzle or BP either, because countering those two is about being able to counter specific threats seen on those types of teams, not 99% of pokemon in the game.

The question of whether or not it's broken or uncompetitive ultimately comes down to whether you think having your attacks get reduced to 75% accuracy or less is broken/uncompetitive.'

edit@ Jibaku:

From what I gather, you are saying to just deal with the lowered accuracy of your attacks and just pummel them and hope that the attacks don't miss. I agree that this is better than using something like Haze to counter it. Like I said in this post, whether DT is broken/uncompetitive ultimately depends on whether somebody thinks having 75% accuracy or less on your attacks is broken/uncompetitive. I was just trying to debunk any claims that DT can be easily countered with Haze and all those other things that people often list that can stop DT.

Gravity Intensified!

 

[Woodchuck]

oh for god's sake
anyone who uses the word 'uncompetitive'
needs to read this thread NOW

 

[His Eminence Lord Poppington II]

from that i can gather jas has been using it wrong, he still hasn't made a single point in favour of how luck does not negatively influence a competitive metagame.

all he says is that we should use luck to our advantage or make our decisions factoring luck in; if you add more luck to the game all you can do is make a choice that will have luck affect it the least! that is definitely not a metagame i want to play in, where every choice i make is just the one that is least likely to fuck me over and where a previously 100% choice is now a 75% one.

secondly, luck is 'Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions', it is mutually exclusive with choice, and your statement of using 'manipulate luck to their advantage' makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out.

also, i'm pretty sure all of you touting quagsire as a counter are completely wrong; unaware only ignores defence / attack boosts of the defending / attacking pokemon, respectively, not its evasion.

 

[Woodchuck]

Oh and also I wanted to add that there are basically two main goals of tiering and making rules for pokemon:

1. Make the game more fun

Sub goals would include: making more variety of play possible, trying to avoid staleness in the metagame, etc.

2. Make the better player win more often

This is the main reason for Evasion and OHKO clause. A competition is one that aims to determine who is better at whatever the competition is centered around. The more often the better player wins, the more 'pure' the competition is. This also arguably would make Pokemon more enjoyable as the better player winning more often means more meaningful suspect tests, more meaningful ladder scores, and more meaningful play in general.

 

[Joel]

oh for god's sake
anyone who uses the word 'uncompetitive'
needs to read this thread NOW

Read the OP of your link. I'll go back and read the rest momentarily.

Just wanted to post here and say I agree with the definition of uncompetitive that is quoted in that OP.

I only agree with it because DT/Minimize piss poor strategy that will not work 90% of the time, therefore, it's uncompetitive.

Uncompetitive battling (imo) can be a synonym for noob battling. And yes, anyone attempting to bother with using DT/Minimize as a team strategy has got to be a noob.

 

[locoghoul]

I only agree with it because DT/Minimize piss poor strategy that will not work 90% of the time, therefore, it's uncompetitive.

Uncompetitive battling (imo) can be a synonym for noob battling. And yes, anyone attempting to bother with using DT/Minimize as a team strategy has got to be a noob.

Then why is it banned/feared/looked down upon?

 

[Joel]

Then why is it banned/feared/looked down upon?

I honestly have no answer for that other than the testers were chickenshits.

I battle GBU usually. It's not banned there, and I've never once seen it used successfully.

 

[Woodchuck]

actually I, the OP, was pretty mistaken when I initially made that thread
I suggest those reading it to read closer to the people arguing against me

 

[lmitchell0012]

Try to think of it this way. When we talk about hax, I think we're talking about things that happen but don't happen 100% of the time.

Examples
-Flinching
-Critical hit
-Immobilized by love (because of attract)
-Pokemon hits itself in confusion
-A move misses

Now, there are certain abilities and items in pokemon that make hax more likely to happen. However, we like the metagame to have as little hax as possible. Allowing double team/mimimize to be used only causes more hax and therefore it is unhealthy for the metagame.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Oh and also I wanted to add that there are basically two main goals of tiering and making rules for pokemon:

1. Make the game more fun

Sub goals would include: making more variety of play possible, trying to avoid staleness in the metagame, etc.

2. Make the better player win more often

This is the main reason for Evasion and OHKO clause. A competition is one that aims to determine who is better at whatever the competition is centered around. The more often the better player wins, the more 'pure' the competition is. This also arguably would make Pokemon more enjoyable as the better player winning more often means more meaningful suspect tests, more meaningful ladder scores, and more meaningful play in general.

You people posting about countering Double Team and its inherent uncompetitiveness cannot even begin to grasp how relevant this post is. Seriously, read it and the thread Woodchuck linked to; not the OP, but the discussion. Otherwise, you won't be going anywhere here.

 

[skitz0phrenic]

Allowing Minimize/DT offers absolutely zero benefits to the metagame.

I really can't believe anyone could think otherwise.

 

[Joel]

Allowing Minimize/DT offers absolutely zero benefits to the metagame.

I really can't believe anyone could think otherwise.

Zero negatives, as well.

I promise anyone using DT/Minimize as a team based strategy will lose with said team 50% of the time, or more in any tier they are battling in.

 

[skitz0phrenic]

Zero negatives, as well.

I promise anyone using DT/Minimize as a team based strategy will lose with said team 50% of the time, or more inany tier they are battling in.

Intentionally adding more hax to a game that attempts to be competitive is 100% a negative.\

Luck and competitive merit absolutely do not exist together.

 

[Joel]

Intentionally adding more hax to a game that attempts to be competitive is 100% a negative.\

Luck and competitive merit absolutely do not exist together.

But when they can't (and they won't) get the hax on their side, they lose. A battler can't get such a lousy strategy to work for the basis of an entire team.

I agree 100% that DT/Minimize is uncompetitive, but it has absolutely nothing to do with potential hax. It's only uncompetitive for the person using it, and only because it is a lousy and losing strategy to base a team on.

I'd have much more fun myself battling an experienced and competent battler, and losing to their competitive team, than I would have walking all over top of a DT/Minimize team some noob is using.

 

[Lady Shinki]

Everybody talking about "luck vs. skill" and "pure competition" is ignoring two key points:

1: Evasion is frowned upon already
2: It's statistically much less likely to work than normal strategies

There is literally no reason for it to be banned other than the fact that you don't like to see your carefully-crafted strategies lose 1 out of 20 games to a Double Team Sand Veil Gliscor. Not only will a player using evasion be disliked (And likely to be near the bottom of the ladder), the turn a Pokemon uses DT could be spent using Swords Dance, Tail Glow, Nasty Plot, Stealth Rock, etc., all of which are more directly useful and much more reliable. Honestly, it's the same argument for 1hko moves, since they're statistically more likely to fail than succeed and are extremely PP limited, but I don't really want to get too off base with that one. None of this still changes the fact that Pokemon still have counters, and Double Team won't let you beat all of them. Since evasive abilities like Sand Veil are already allowed, why not go the extra mile and allow Double Team? (Moody isn't included in this, since a net stat gain every turn is something different to consider entirely)

 

[His Eminence Lord Poppington II]

moody was only banned because it fell under evasion clause iirc, it was fine and all that they could get boosts, but if you couldn't hit them it was fucking stupid

 

[Jibaku]

Moody was banned under Moody Clause.

 

[Woodchuck]

Everybody talking about "luck vs. skill" and "pure competition" is ignoring two key points:

1: Evasion is frowned upon already
2: It's statistically much less likely to work than normal strategies

There is literally no reason for it to be banned other than the fact that you don't like to see your carefully-crafted strategies lose 1 out of 20 games to a Double Team Sand Veil Gliscor. Not only will a player using evasion be disliked (And likely to be near the bottom of the ladder), the turn a Pokemon uses DT could be spent using Swords Dance, Tail Glow, Nasty Plot, Stealth Rock, etc., all of which are more directly useful and much more reliable. Honestly, it's the same argument for 1hko moves, since they're statistically more likely to fail than succeed and are extremely PP limited, but I don't really want to get too off base with that one. None of this still changes the fact that Pokemon still have counters, and Double Team won't let you beat all of them. Since evasive abilities like Sand Veil are already allowed, why not go the extra mile and allow Double Team? (Moody isn't included in this, since a net stat gain every turn is something different to consider entirely)

Even taking into account the statistical disparity in terms of evasion's effectiveness vs. conventional strategies, it still violates my second point in what is basically my boiled down version of the Characteristics of a Desirable Pokemon Metagame.

2. Make the better player win more often

Unbanning Evasion and OHKO moves would be the antithesis of the suspect testing process. We are trying to make the metagame a better measure of skill in Pokemon, not a worse one.

And before you extend this to moves with chances to miss such as Fire Blast and Stone Edge, let me remind you that the choice of those moves is up to the user. The user is the one making the tradeoff of accuracy vs. power. I can control whether I run Stone Edge or Rock Slide on my Tyranitar; what I can't control is whether my opponent runs Double Team Zapdos and proceeds to hax the rest of my team. When the object / entity / strategy takes the result of the game out of the hands of the players, we are creating a metagame that is too luck-based and is no longer a good measure of skill; it's not as good a competition anymore.

 

[locoghoul]

However, we like the metagame to have as little hax as possible. Allowing double team/mimimize to be used only causes more hax and therefore it is unhealthy for the metagame.

Who is "we"? Close minded =/= "competitive"

When the object / entity / strategy takes the result of the game out of the hands of the players, we are creating a metagame that is too luck-based and is no longer a good measure of skill; it's not as good a competition anymore.

You are just telling billion of poker players out there that they are just monkeys sitting around a table throwing money. There is already luck in the game. No one banned Jirachi or Togekiss for those 1 in 20 matches where they got 5-6 flinches on a row. People just adapted to it, and that is actual skill, to think and develop a better strategy. It's called "competition". That 10% chance of Ice Beam freezing your poke is there, like it or not. If you get frozen it's not "omg hax0r" but a reminder that you can't control everything (yes, that includes not being able to control if your opponent decides on using DT Scyther)

 

[jas61292]

from that i can gather jas has been using it wrong, he still hasn't made a single point in favour of how luck does not negatively influence a competitive metagame.

And yet I don't see a single reason why it does negatively influence the metagame. What I have tried to point out is that while an introduction of more luck may change the metagame it does not make it inherently better or worse. True, some people may like one more than the other, but individuals liking something more does not make it better.

all he says is that we should use luck to our advantage or make our decisions factoring luck in; if you add more luck to the game all you can do is make a choice that will have luck affect it the least! that is definitely not a metagame i want to play in, where every choice i make is just the one that is least likely to fuck me over and where a previously 100% choice is now a 75% one.

secondly, luck is 'Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions', it is mutually exclusive with choice, and your statement of using 'manipulate luck to their advantage' makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out.

Basically, look at the next quote. As he points out, Poker, like Pokemon, is a game heavily based on luck, probably even more so. By your argument, in such a game, if you get a bad hand, you automatically lose, because luck and skill do no rely on each other. Reality is, skill involves taking luck, analyzing it, and making the best play. And this does not mean just in the team building phase just analyzing whether to pick Flamethrower or Fire Blast. It means on the fly, choosing the best course of action knowing that the opponent could crit you, or your moves could miss. But I don't just mean pick the thing that wont screw you over. What I mean is that, just as important as making a smart decision is getting yourself in a situation where luck is in your favor.

You are just telling billion of poker players out there that they are just monkeys sitting around a table throwing money. There is already luck in the game. No one banned Jirachi or Togekiss for those 1 in 20 matches where they got 5-6 flinches on a row. People just adapted to it, and that is actual skill, to think and develop a better strategy. It's called "competition". That 10% chance of Ice Beam freezing your poke is there, like it or not. If you get frozen it's not "omg hax0r" but a reminder that you can't control everything (yes, that includes not being able to control if your opponent decides on using DT Scyther)

Thank you.

To everyone out there shouting out things like "introducing luck makes the game less competitive," or "introducing luck takes away from skill needed to win," learn the definition of the words you are using.

What is the definition of "unhealthy for the metagame"?
If it's an indirect way to say "annoying", then Flinchax Jirachi is far more "unhealthy" than evasion can possibly be.

And once again, thank you. To be quite honest, the majority of people here seem to be using the word "unhealthy" in this way, and that is just strictly untrue.

And as someone else pointed out above, you can't say "this is the way it should be because this is how we want it," because not everyone would agree that having less evasion is good. I personally am indifferent, and don't think DT would hurt the metagame any more than it would help it. But just because you don't like it does not mean that that is how something should be.

 

[alexwolf]

It was a hypothetical set based on the SubDD Dragonite that was brought up as 'OP' in the suspect thread. As for what its going to do, well the main goal would be to boost its evasion to +6 and then ideally sweep. It doesnt matter if the pokemon in front of you is setting up since at +6 evasion they probably wont even hit you. Hell, if you're behind a sub its an automatic gg. And btw, Whirlwind can miss. It has a 100% accuracy so that is not reliable either.

I know that whirlwind has accuracy but it is going to hit once every 3 times at full evasion and then good luck setting up again.
You only have Dragon Claw as your attacking move remember and this is doing jack to many physical walls.
All this pokes that i mentioned can comfortably beat your set simply by outstalling it or by phazing it out.

 

[charizard24]

Yes, that Dragonite set isn't very good i'll admit. It was just a quick example utilizing something i was discussing at the time.
Regardless though, evasion boosts can be very potent on the right pokemon and i still feel it shouldn't be unbanned just for the extra luck factor and the number of problems it would cause.
Going on theorymon alone, it is arguably far, far from broken. But it is currently a standard clause, and one that a significant majority of battlers think is useful. Therefore, it should remain a standard clause.

 

[alexwolf]

It is true that not everyone will be weak to the moves that ignore evasion, and thus some Pokemon might be able to actually use a DT strategy. So what? Every Pokemon gest Substitute and Protect. Not all can use them well though. Just because they can though does not mean it breaks them. Same is true for Double Team.

Additionally, the point I have been trying to make about viability is that countering top threats is in and of itself something to make a Pokemon viable. It pisses me off when people complain about a Pokemon being too good but won't use its counter because the counter is "not good enough." If a Pokemon does something you need, then it is good.

And as for the argument that the only counters would be dead weight otherwise, that is thinking from the wrong point of view. People go into these arguments thinking about Pokemon in the current metagame, and not the metagame in which this stuff actually applies. It is true that, say, Clear Smog Amoongus, might not be good in the current metagame, but in a metagame where it shuts down the top threats, it would be. Saying that a Pokemon is an un-viable counter because it would be too limited in the real metagame does not prove anything about a hypothetical one. If a metagame is actually given some time to adapt, the appropriate counters would rise up. Only after a metagame is give time to adapt would we be able to tell if there really are not enough counters

Well you have a point when you say that if something counters the major threat then it is viable but still you miss something.

Let me give you an example.
Weather started dominating the metagame and so people started looking for solutions.
So some new pokes came in light like Gastrodon,Toxicroak etc,and some old pokes found new uses for countering weather threats like Gliscor,Rotom-W etc.
All of these pokes saw so high use mainly becauase of weather but they still had other uses.Or else noone else would use them.
If a strategy like DT was so popular that everyone should carry moves like Shock Wave and Magic Leaf then it would be broken 'cause noone in their right mind would use this move for any other purpose except for dealing with those moves.
If you couldn't build a team without having a move like Magic Leaf,which is inferior in every instance other than countering one thing,then this strategy would be broken because it would make you carry very specific moves(niche moves)if you didn't want to lose.

Even Haze and Perish Song,which are considered the most niche competitive moves,have multiple uses.Their main use in OU is stopping Batton Pass teams,'cause outside of this Roar and Whirlwind seem almost always better for phazing.
But both moves have the advantage of beating the last pokes and working on Espeon while Whirlwind and Roar cannot do this.

Now imagine how shitty the always hitting moves are and how one sided they are.Not even to mention how they don't even counter the things they are supposed to always(DT users) unlike Haze and Perish Song which stop Batton Pass chains cold.

So in my eyes evasion raising moves don't really having viable counters.

Yes, that Dragonite set isn't very good i'll admit. It was just a quick example utilizing something i was discussing at the time.
Regardless though, evasion boosts can be very potent on the right pokemon and i still feel it shouldn't be unbanned just for the extra luck factor and the number of problems it would cause.
Going on theorymon alone, it is arguably far, far from broken. But it is currently a standard clause, and one that a significant majority of battlers think is useful. Therefore, it should remain a standard clause.

I agree with you that they should be banned but not because they are broken but uncompetitive.

 

[jas61292]

Well you have a point when you say that if something counters the major threat then it is viable but still you miss something.

Let me give you an example.
Weather started dominating the metagame and so people started looking for solutions.
So some new pokes came in light like Gastrodon,Toxicroak etc,and some old pokes found new uses for countering weather threats like Gliscor,Rotom-W etc.
All of these pokes saw so high use mainly becauase of weather but they still had other uses.Or else noone else would use them.
If a strategy like DT was so popular that everyone should carry moves like Shock Wave and Magic Leaf then it would be broken 'cause noone in their right mind would use this move for any other purpose except for dealing with those moves.
If you couldn't build a team without having a move like Magic Leaf,which is inferior in every instance other than countering one thing,then this strategy would be broken because it would make you carry very specific moves(niche moves)if you didn't want to lose.

Even Haze and Perish Song,which are considered the most niche competitive moves,have multiple uses.Their main use in OU is stopping Batton Pass teams,'cause outside of this Roar and Whirlwind seem almost always better for phazing.
But both moves have the advantage of beating the last pokes and working on Espeon while Whirlwind and Roar cannot do this.

Now imagine how shitty the always hitting moves are and how one sided they are.Not even to mention how they don't even counter the things they are supposed to always(DT users) unlike Haze and Perish Song which stop Batton Pass chains cold.

So in my eyes evasion raising moves don't really having viable counters.

From my point of view though, you are still thinking from the perspective of the current metagame and not the hypothetical one we are talking about.
One line specifically stands out to me:

If a strategy like DT was so popular that everyone should carry moves like Shock Wave and Magic Leaf then it would be broken 'cause noone in their right mind would use this move for any other purpose except for dealing with those moves.

I don't really agree with this because if DT is as big of a threat as people claim, then having these moves would counter many different Pokemon, thus be useful overall.

But to put it a different way, say OU had no Pokemon weak to Rock. In this situation, carrying Stone Edge would be not very useful. Now if one Pokemon who was weak to Rock appeared and was so good that it forced people to start carrying Stone Edge on everyone who can learn it, then that Pokemon would be broken, because it forces everyone to run otherwise situational moves that are generally useless.

You seem to be claiming the same thing in this scenario, but with Double Team taking the place of the broken Pokemon, and never missing moves taking the role of Stone Edge. The difference is though that DT is not one Pokemon. It could be on everyone. It would not be one Pokemon overcentralizing the game towards it, it would be a threatening move that everyone should prepare for. And in such a situation, those moves would be useful moves. Not situational at all.

Just because something seems like a generally bad move in this metagame has absolutely no effect on how good they are in some other metagame.