SwagPlay, evaluating potential bans (basic definition of "uncompetitive" in OP)

[Balsty]

Is anyone out there will

If I'm understanding you correctly it's better to have everyone play similar playstyles like balance or bulky offense because its more fun? That isn't how a healthy Metagame should be like. You want to have a diversity in playstyles and all of those playstyles to be as viable as possible. Forcing people to run a "more balanced setups" is bad, not because of the playstyles but because you are being forced to run specific things to have a viable team. This is way Blaziken was one the reason that lead to its banning. You were forced to run Talonflame and Azumarill to prevent yourself from losing to it. Thats not a good at all. A lot of people didn't like BW2 OU because playstyles like stall weren't as viable as Hyper offense. It was monotonous, repetitive and boring I don't see this being a desirable meta. You have to run specific mons to have your team be considered good and viable.

If I misinterpreted what you said, let me know but thats what you made it sound like.

Sorry, I'm using less words than I should be when making my point.
It doesn't outright deny heavy offense, but it makes a player think more about their team when they build it. At least I feel like it does. You can't cover everything, but you can cover most things. If you run something with Magic Bounce, rest assured that Klefki is the least of your worries, but you'll inevitably leave a hole somewhere.

Okay, wait, are you saying you disagree with me that causing teams to be more diverse in playstyles is a good thing? It actually sounded like that at first, but as I read further I see you sort of switching around what you're saying.

My main point was exactly what you just said, the B/W/B2/W2 meta was full of heavy offense teams and stall(to name just one style) was almost completely dead. The meta was boring. I stopped playing in that meta shortly after B/W because of this reason. What I like about the X/Y meta is that you can pick almost ANY style(except baton pass because priority is everywhere) and make it viable. However, I am not seeing the same type of stallstallstallstall or attackattackattackattack teams that I saw in gen IV and V, respectively.
A balanced setup does not necessarily mean that you're running specific things to have a viable team. It can mean that your team is half stall, half HO. It could be partially baton pass and partially stall, or just outright mixed with walls and sweepers and leads and more.

I think we might be both misunderstanding each other in some ways here. Swagger+Foul Play is just another moveset that you need to think about when building your team. "If it comes up, how shall I deal with it?"
Predicting around it has always been my best bet. Other times, you just can't do much about it except get lucky. If you switch to something that resists Dark and/or has either high defense or low attack or both, then even with boosts Foul Play won't be doing much, and probability states that you'll get that KO in eventually. If you're not preparing for powerful threats in the metagame, you're not thinking when building your team.

I need a smoke.

 

[pick]

I'm attacking the relevance of your arguments not because I know I'm wrong (and opinions can't be wrong), but because they are irrelevant and you and I both know that. Actually suggesting to use Numel, a pokemon who is barely viable in LC and absolutely useless in OU, is ridiculous and you know that just as well as anyone else in this thread.

1) Stop saying my argument is irrelevant, that's not how you argue.

2) The numel posts were me and some people having fun. Do you know what fun is? I hope you won't further derail your own argument with more red herrings.

As for constantly modifying something that is imperfect, isn't that what people do all the time? The first airplane was refined, the first car, the first skyscraper, etc. Attempting to perfect things is human nature, and that's the whole point of this community. In regard to you saying that I don't enjoy the game, would I be here if I didn't enjoy the game? Why would I devote time to contributing to something I don't like?

False analogy. Airplanes were made not for fun but pokemon was. Instead of playing the completely playable game for fun, you come here to express your hatred for the status quo. You're not contributing because you like pokemon, but because you hate accepting and enjoying things the way they are. You play the game to create a supposedly "perfect" metagame, which is a never ending cycle of fixing things.

And as for fixing my strategy, people said the same thing about Mega Kang. All the people who were against banning her came up with plenty of ways to get past her. But we still banned Mega Kang. Why? Because the meta was getting too centralized. Everyone would have been forced to run a counter to Kang on their team, limiting the creativity of teambuilding. If a strategy such as SwagPlay causes us to do the same thing, why should we have to put up with it?

Another false analogy. Mega kangaskhan was forcing people to run specific counters that were mostly useless against other things. Checks to swagplay such as substitute thundurus with taunt are extremely useful even outside checking. Another example is espeon, which can survive foul play with 0 attack evs and KO its users, which happens to also be extremely useful in the face of a non-swagger foul play team.

Now we can either continue this petty argument and eventually grow to hate each other, or we can just agree to disagree about how to deal with this strategy.

You can hate me but I don't hate you and I never will. I am just trying to save you from your own hatred and to help you enjoy competitive pokemon.

 

[noobcubed]

http://www.smogon.com/bw/pokemon/xatu

seemed to be viable in ubers last gen

Different generation, different metagame.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/xatu-qc-0-3.3496105/#post-5211107

Not that this is really relevant to the topic at hand though...

 

[Gehenna]

I don't think we need to go that far and ban Swagger entirely. Swagger alone is far easier to stop than Swagger + Prankster, and requires thinking about what you're using Swagger on.

For instance, Umbreon probably shouldn't use Swagger against a Terrakion.

Swagger has no competitive value (at least in OU, don't play lower tiers), and I believe most people here on Smogon are in favor of avoiding complex bans if a simpler solution exists (ban Swagger).

 

[CL0V3R]

Except that the consensus is that Xatu is no longer OU viable...

There's plenty of Pokemon in OU that can handle SwagPlay. Mentioning things like Xatu and Numel just weakens our case.

Never mentioned Numel. Only mentioned Xatu because it's actually quite effective, I wasn't aware it wasn't consider OU viable anymore.
Since I've been running Xatu for a while with no issues. Guess I need to stay better informed.

 

[Echronus]

The overwhelming support this thread has seen only proves the competitive pokemon community is far too mature to find enjoyment in such childish strategies as Swag-Play that are in essence based on pure luck, and not skill.

Thus, not only will we soon be banning all luck-based moves and strategies such as (but not limited to):
Paralysis
Flinch
Confusion

In addition to this, after long and hard thinking, us higher-ups have decided to take this opportunity to go on a spree, nay, a crusade, against luck-based elements in the game.
Thus, we will also be banning items such as Bright Powder, and any moves with less than 100% accuracy. This is in order to maintain a fair metagame where predictive skill will be critical to your success, not the alignment of the stars or other such occult nonsense.

Furthermore, there is a new tier, very soon to be implemented as the standard OU tier, wherein the only allowed moves are SonicBoom and Dragonrage.
There will be an Uber tier later where the only allowed moves are Seismic Toss and Night Shade. This is because the council has come to the decision that damage ranges were detrimental to skillful, strategic play.
For example, a 93.3% chance to 2HKO is still a 6.7% of losing out, by no fault of your own.

These changes will become effective as per March 1st, thank you for reading and supporting Smogon™ University and Pokemon Showdown!©.

I feel Dragon rage may become too powerful as it always does 40 damage, whereas sonicboom always does 20 damage. It simply will become too stressful in matches if you are the adversary using sonicboom, hoping for a critical hit. You would then lose by a mere 20 damage that sonicboom lacks, which is entirely not your fault.

 

[peng]

I'm deeply disappointed that there are people that are actually opposed to this ban. If you want to play games that are decided by a series of 50% or 25% chances then go to a casino or something. This is not the kind of thing that should be viable in a competitive game and in my eyes is on par with evasion and OHKO moves in terms of uncompetitiveness.

@ anyone who is saying Pokemon is already luck based: this does not justify keeping strategies like this around. People keep bringing up analogies including Stone Edge, Hydro Pump, Critical Hits etc but these are all massively skewed in one direction compared to Swagger. There is at least some kind of risk/reward to running them. Swagger is literally just banking on a 50% chance off the bat and if you get it then you develop such a crucial gain of momentum that the game is skewed in your favour. Miss it and you're probably bulky enough to try and hit that 50% again and if you once again fail, you have 5 other mons that do exactly the same thing. I don't understand how anyone can suggest that this strategy promotes competitive gameplay in any way.

I don't know why anyone would invest time into flipping coins in a kids video game and attempting to pass it off as "competitive". In an ideal world nobody would be using this and we wouldnt even have to have this discussion, but apparently there are enough people out there who think shit like this is a good use of their time.

edit: and the counters to this strategy aren't even good. People keep mentioning Lum but thats 1 time use, so you get 1 KO at best before the next prankster comes in and tries the whole thing again. Anyone mentioning Own Tempo needs to take a long hard look at the Pokemon that get that ability and decide if they really want to waste a teamslot on a Pokemon thats useful against 1 teamstyle that shouldnt exist to begin with.

 

[Plat]

There is way too much slippery slope bs going on right now. "B-but if we ban swagplay why next thing we will be banning stall and paralysis too!". People seem to think that pranksterswag is a coin toss for the user... that only applies to the first turn. If you are paralyzed and confused the opponent isn't flipping any coins, it's their opponent. It is a flipping of the burden of luck from you to the opponent. The law of averages dictates that the user will come out on top more often than not in a neutral environment.

 

[Toljik]

Swagger has no competitive value (at least in OU, don't play lower tiers), and I believe most people here on Smogon are in favor of avoiding complex bans if a simpler solution exists (ban Swagger).

Gengar and Trevenant run Confuse Ray a statistically significant percentage of the time and neither of them have Prankster. Tentacruel, Ninetales, Crobat and Umbreon also use it in UU.

And seriously, "Don't play lower tiers"? This decision will affect every tier, not just OU. UU players should have just as much of a say in this.

 

[newbishop]

Honestly, it could potentially be countered with certain pokes (Rotom-W an example), but my main quip with the strategy is that of being uncompetitive, and in the hands of a good player, uncompetitive and dangerous. I see many throwing around the whole "switch out" counter, but when the opponent can just go behind a sub, and repeat the entire process again, solving the problem is much more complicated than that, because a smart player can abuse the switches efficiently. It's a playstyle which pretty much involves playing dice, and abusing the Swagger boost with Foul Play, or maybe even a Ditto lurking in the wings (to those saying the boosts can backfire to the swagplay user). Regardless of counters, I still compare it to things like Sand Veil and Snow Cloak, and if I remember correctly, the latter was banned not necessarily because it was a huge problem (like Sand Veil Chomp was) but because it was uncompetitive, and if Sand Veil went, well, why not Snow Cloak? I would go to say ban Swagger, since its simpler than a complex ban, and there are still other fast abusers (Thundurus, Tornadus) of SwagPlay, merely on the stance that it is uncompetitive and unhealthy for the metagame.

 

[Joycdonnell]

my two cents.

Swagplay is pretty annoying to fight! is very unhealthy (even if you have a electric poke, you need rely to the luck to hit Kefkli or end hitting itself). Switching out helps to reset the swagger attacking boost but you are giving some advantages to you opponent like thunderwave/confuse your other pokemons (thankfully that swagger have 10% chances to miss).

between the 3 options of the OP, the first one is the most razonable one because is the only thing that relies to the luck factor (which is very uncompetitive and annoying).

Meanwhile prankster pokes have very userful and competitive uses with his ability and movepool (like burn powerful physical threats with wisp o wisp from sableye, support the team with tailwind, taunt fast rock setters and cut the speed from sweepers like charizard X with thunderwave), so banning pranster and/or their users is pretty unfair just for 1 move: swagger.

Foul play is a good move for defensive pokemons like mandibuzz and Umbreon as a form to give some damage and help to deal vs physical set up sweepers, there is no need to ban that move just for Swagplay.

the most simple answer (and that no makes complex bans) just
Ban Swagger only

 

[Toljik]

I would go to say ban Swagger, since its simpler than a complex ban, and there are still other fast abusers (Thundurus, Tornadus) of SwagPlay, merely on the stance that it is uncompetitive and unhealthy for the metagame.

You're forgetting that both Thundurus and Tornadus have Prankster. All the abusers of Swagger that are driving people mad here have Prankster..

 

[Balsty]

You're forgetting that both Thundurus and Tornadus have Prankster. All the abusers of Swagger that are driving people mad here have Prankster..

I think it should be clear that Prankster is not the issue, it's the combination of the two that's causing people headaches.

 

[darck1234567890]

As someone who played a lot of Gen V NU, where Liepard was one of the most used pokes (and I used him myself), there is no way SwagPlay is worthy of a ban. That's just asinine. It's annoying, that's all it is. Klefki and Liepard are way more useful in spreading around paralysis anyway. Thundurus too has more optimal things to run, and Sableye really shouldn't waste one of his move slots for Swagger over Taunt or Trick.

When I ran Liepard, the purpose I used for him was to come in on fast threats and cripple them with paralysis, sometimes after setting up a sub. If I could get a sub up, I Swagger and Foul Play. If they hit themselves in confusion, fine, if not, I'm dealing damage with Foul Play until they break my sub, in which case I would sub again. Eventually I would have to bite the bullet and die or switch out if my Foul Plays didn't kill them yet. This also made Liepard predictable, since you had to forgo Taunt in order to SwagPlay. If I ran Taunt, my Foul Plays would be much weaker and I wouldn't be able to provide as much of a threat to other pokemon, confusion or no confusion. Often times I set up a sub after paralysis and Swaggered them multiple times, not caring about confusion, just for more damage. I do not recall 6-0ing teams, Liepard was just a check to many pokemon in the tier. Nobody considered it unfair then, Liepard wasn't even the most used pokemon in the tier, in NU mind you, so why now? Klefki really isn't that hard to kill, especially at +2.

 

[acestriker19]

To show an example of how swagplay can beat hard counters with significant luck. Lets do the math for a good scenario for the swagplayer with what one would assume to be a "hard counter" (Heatran in this case) to swagplay using probability to see how likely its is for your "hard counter" to fail. I'm factoring in Heatran having to switch in as well because who would switch a swagplayer into Heatran.

Heatran switchs in
-12% from stealth rocks
Turn 1, Heatran gets swaggered

Turn 2, +2 0- Atk Heatran Confusion Attack vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 45-54 (11.6 - 13.9%) (+6 from lefties)
Heatran hits itself and Swagplayer sets up a sub: 50% chance

+2 0- Atk Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 107-126 (27.7 - 32.6%)
Turn 2, +2 0- Atk Heatran Confusion Attack vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 45-54 (11.6 - 13.9%) (+6 from lefties)
Heatran hits itself again and swagplayer uses foul play. (25% chance)

+2 0- Atk Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 107-126 (27.7 - 32.6%) (+6 from lefties)
Heatran snaps out of confusion and breaks the sub. Heatran health is now at 22%

+2 0- Atk Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 107-126 (27.7 - 32.6%)
Swagster outspeeds and foul plays killing your heatran


Yes this is our hard counter everyone... a hard counter that only has a 25% chance of dying to said swagster. Think about it, one of the best counters to Swagplay dies 25% of the time. That means that Heatran cannot counter two swagsters or even hard counter one. This is why swagplay is broken. Mandibuzz is the only viable "Hard counter" but a well constructed team can threaten Mandi out and rack up SR damage on it.

At the very least we should ban Swagger+Prankster

 

[Yayz]

I'm of the opinion that we should ban Swagger in conjunction with Prankster. Swagger (and confusion) are used occaisionally outside of these strategies, and because of this, it would unfairly hurt players who otherwise use them. I haven't seen SwagPlay much in my own experience, but from what I've heard, those who run Swagger+Prankster also run Twave. It only hurts those who are being (in my opinion) boring.

 

[Toljik]

I think it should be clear that Prankster is not the issue, it's the combination of the two that's causing people headaches.

Yes, that's what I meant. There's a lot of very viable (even if in UU) Swagger and Confuse Ray users that do not have Prankster and are not broken. Nobody complains about Confuse Ray Ninetales/Crobat/Umbreon/Trevenant, and nobody complains about WoW Sableye and dual screens Klefki.

 

[newbishop]

You're forgetting that both Thundurus and Tornadus have Prankster. All the abusers of Swagger that are driving people mad here have Prankster..

Speaking on the case of the complex ban, they both can still run defiant with the same moveset, and be fast enough to get away with it.

 

[Balsty]

So, the main arguments for banning this is that it can potentially limit team building by forcing people to run something that can counter it, and that it takes no skill to use.

Also that it creates a coin toss scenario.

If it gets banned, then it creates a slippery slope of other things that fall under the same reasoning for being banned.

Talonflame takes no skill to use and limits team building by forcing people to run a check to it such as Rotom-W.

If you ban this, ban Talonflame+Gale Wings, and the metagame will balance out a little better because less people will resort to Rotom-W for walling Talonflame.

If you're not willing to do that, ban nothing and keep it the way it is.

 

[Toljik]

Speaking on the case of the complex ban, they both can still run defiant with the same moveset, and be fast enough to get away with it.

That's true. But base 111 speed, while great, but not as impressive as it used to be, and priority is everywhere. Without Prankster their Swagger strategy is far easier to handle.

 

[sidakarya]

Talonflame takes no skill to use and limits team building by forcing people to run a check to it such as Rotom-W.

If you ban this, ban Talonflame+Gale Wings, and the metagame will balance out a little better because less people will resort to Rotom-W for walling Talonflame.

If you're not willing to do that, ban nothing and keep it the way it is.

Talonflame does not win you games by cheap gambling.

 

[Balsty]

Talonflame does not win you games by cheap gambling.

Prankster+Swagger does not win you games period. If all you rely on is that, you'll lose 100% of your battles.

 

[Haru Piro]

I really doenst care, but Ban Prankters+Swagger, less luck reliant is always good, we lose nothing.

Prankster+Swagger does not win you games period. If all you rely on is that, you'll lose 100% of your battles.

And? Talon need support, Swag is simple luck.

 

[Salt]

So, the main arguments for banning this is that it can potentially limit team building by forcing people to run something that can counter it, and that it takes no skill to use.

Also that it creates a coin toss scenario.

If it gets banned, then it creates a slippery slope of other things that fall under the same reasoning for being banned.

Talonflame takes no skill to use and limits team building by forcing people to run a check to it such as Rotom-W.

If you ban this, ban Talonflame+Gale Wings, and the metagame will balance out a little better because less people will resort to Rotom-W for walling Talonflame.

If you're not willing to do that, ban nothing and keep it the way it is.

Rotom-W isn't just used for Talonflame. It's generally considered one of the best mons in OU. Talonflame is also kept in check by literally every Rock-type except for Cradily, Armaldo, and Terrakion by virtue of resisting dual STABs. (and who uses Cradiliy and Armaldo, and who switches Terrakion into Talonflame anyway). Also, Heatran. Also, Stealth Rock.

Prankster+Swagger does not win you games period. If all you rely on is that, you'll lose 100% of your battles.

What? Several replays have been posted that depict SwagPlay winning cleanly. I once saw a team consisting of PURRLOIN and ONLY PURRLOIN sweeping in UBERS. Lose 100% of battles my ass.

EDIT: TropiOUs just posted it.

 

[TROP]

Prankster+Swagger does not win you games period. If all you rely on is that, you'll lose 100% of your battles.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-55233500
the "ubers" team is terrible but...