Why We Should Preserve Archetypal Diversity
There are many reasons why ADV OU is the most popular OG meta game, however, its unique game balance and diverse viability is undeniably fundamental to its popularity and competitiveness. We can make the following observations on what makes ADV OU so successful: Balance’s dominance and reliability is an excellent indicator of metagame health, and, balance's metagame dominance is dependent on the limited viability of both stall and offense variations keeping each other in check.
Diversity in viability is a massive boon to ADV’s popularity and game balance. This is in part, a product of the delicate balance in archetypal power levels. It is a good thing that extreme offense is as equally viable as extreme stall, and that both paradigms are less optimal and viable than central balance archetypes.
1) The limited presence and viability of offensive and defensive paradigms keep the other’s extreme variations in check. The relationship between offense and defense in ADV is an ever-evolving cycle of techs in response to metagame tendencies, but both archetypes are limited in their defensive capacity and offensive output. Why? Because maximizing defense or offense leaves you vulnerable to an MU reversal. Get too fat and stall loses to offense; too much offense and you’ll lose to stall. 2) Speed Pass lethality is essential to balancing sandless teams. The shortest path to victory, or maximum lethality, lies within speed pass. Accordingly, stall cannot ignore this in the builder, which is in part why ADV Stall demands a source of offensive pressure, usually in the form of Dugtrio or Aerodactyl to remove key offensive threats. 3) In fact, removing speed pass from the metagame will likely lead to problematic aero/dug structures. 4) Incorporating speed pass into your scout prevents strategies like EC or V5 spam.
If you like ADV, then this dynamic is essential: Stall > Offense > Balance > Stall. This is why a speed pass ban is an alarming balance concern: speed pass is an essential component for mixed and special offense structures to overcome their bad matchups. It is the limited presence and viability of these high-risk high-reward strategies within the meta that checks and balances the opposite side of the spectrum; stall tactics like perish song, haze, toxic stall, pp stall.
‘All-In On Speed Pass’ & It’s Built-In Flaws
‘All-In On Speed Pass’ teams like Roro and Nal’s Smeargle team are the evident problem, and it seems like the community largely supports agility pass teams that function more like mixed/special offense with agility pass as a feature.
Flaw 1: Overarching build limitations necessitate specific combinations of tactics and resources that can only be completed viably and optimally, in a limited number of ways.
Flaw 2: Speedpass is the only archetype whose boost does not immediately provide power to break through checks. This forces speed pass to address counterplay through indirect means like pre-pass trap or removal, and post pass protection. Revealed information is almost always enough to anticipate incoming tactics.
Flaw 3: Speed Pass has built in momentum swings that are its biggest vulnerability. It is hard to stop once going, but hard to get going again once stopped. This is an inherent, built in flaw that dramatically worsens the impacts of the other two flaws. Speed pass can get off its first pass relatively consistently, but its difficult to select the right recipient. Once the initial passer is worn down, subsequent passes are nearly impossible.
“Counterplay is limited"
Balance and stall are entirely capable of using the available tools and leverage revealed information to beat hyper offense. It’s up to these players to figure out how to tech teams against their worst MUs while preserving their best. And that’s not done by slapping roar on skarmory + 1 and calling it a day. That is a team-building flaw that both Roro’s and Nal’s teams have demonstrably proven as flawed and punishable.
1.Defensive switching in an offense-pressured game state versus HO is a very costly, situational decision and should be considered as such.
2. You have a larger pool of resources and greater defensive synergy, which means that trading/risking is almost always more beneficial for you. Building with and playing to protect key defensive pieces is essential.
I think this is the crux of the issue here: Roar is the most optimal, widely useful and distributed anti-offense move in almost every scenario, except for one. HO can very easily, and in diverse ways, punish this lazy balance-building principle of 2 roars per team. If balanced players would incorporate nuanced building techniques and update their understanding of the HO game state, they could then practice more accurate and effective decision-making principles.
"Banning Speed Pass is the Only Way to Preserve Baton Pass in the Tier"
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I've read multiple pro-ban arguments that seem to imply that it's: "ban speed pass or else". But if Old Gen Council is so hostile to reasonable tier actions, which the refusal to address accuracy moves seems to indicate, then
....
Is The Real Culprit A Combination of Spore + Baton Pass?
While it is true that agility pass does enable the most lethal sequences, there is another culprit to these strategies that is less skill-expressive and enables problematic lines beyond speed pass. In addition to accuracy lowering moves, if there is any action considered, it should be for the high-variance tactic that is enabling these uninteractive, linear strategies. Nal And Roro’s team’s both proved that hyper-offense can easily tech against phasing counterplay, and that this is a flaw in balance team-building. And yes, it is also true that both rely on sleep, whose variable duration often determines the success of these teams.
Demonstrating the Power of Spore + BP
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2420716860-4na856x7yq2hbjq0e7jom66ygvamm7kpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2420723056-vd0dx44xkxlna3y2wpptj89uipbdaefpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2420726935-9uon0cch4bxluj6o664ri3du8mkklvapw
I can whip together some replays to show the same power of Spore + BP with Tail Glow pass, but hopefully the above is enough to demonstrate that speed is not the inherent problem of this archetype, it’s a flawed path to increased lethality. However, in completely different roles on their according teams, Spore + Baton Pass enable both Roro's and Nal's teams to be uninteractive. However, I do have a few issues with this direction of action. I believe that both Tail Glow and Belly Drum pass, as more flawed variations of Spore + Speed Pass, have valuable and fun niches in the metagame. Furthermore, I can demonstrate a team that doesn’t use sleep as the means of creating space. Instead, it uses encore. So inherently, the problem isn’t ‘free turns + speed pass’. The variance/permanence of sleep duration leads to inconsistent outcomes.
There are many reasons why ADV OU is the most popular OG meta game, however, its unique game balance and diverse viability is undeniably fundamental to its popularity and competitiveness. We can make the following observations on what makes ADV OU so successful: Balance’s dominance and reliability is an excellent indicator of metagame health, and, balance's metagame dominance is dependent on the limited viability of both stall and offense variations keeping each other in check.
Diversity in viability is a massive boon to ADV’s popularity and game balance. This is in part, a product of the delicate balance in archetypal power levels. It is a good thing that extreme offense is as equally viable as extreme stall, and that both paradigms are less optimal and viable than central balance archetypes.
1) The limited presence and viability of offensive and defensive paradigms keep the other’s extreme variations in check. The relationship between offense and defense in ADV is an ever-evolving cycle of techs in response to metagame tendencies, but both archetypes are limited in their defensive capacity and offensive output. Why? Because maximizing defense or offense leaves you vulnerable to an MU reversal. Get too fat and stall loses to offense; too much offense and you’ll lose to stall. 2) Speed Pass lethality is essential to balancing sandless teams. The shortest path to victory, or maximum lethality, lies within speed pass. Accordingly, stall cannot ignore this in the builder, which is in part why ADV Stall demands a source of offensive pressure, usually in the form of Dugtrio or Aerodactyl to remove key offensive threats. 3) In fact, removing speed pass from the metagame will likely lead to problematic aero/dug structures. 4) Incorporating speed pass into your scout prevents strategies like EC or V5 spam.
If you like ADV, then this dynamic is essential: Stall > Offense > Balance > Stall. This is why a speed pass ban is an alarming balance concern: speed pass is an essential component for mixed and special offense structures to overcome their bad matchups. It is the limited presence and viability of these high-risk high-reward strategies within the meta that checks and balances the opposite side of the spectrum; stall tactics like perish song, haze, toxic stall, pp stall.
‘All-In On Speed Pass’ & It’s Built-In Flaws
‘All-In On Speed Pass’ teams like Roro and Nal’s Smeargle team are the evident problem, and it seems like the community largely supports agility pass teams that function more like mixed/special offense with agility pass as a feature.
Flaw 1: Overarching build limitations necessitate specific combinations of tactics and resources that can only be completed viably and optimally, in a limited number of ways.
Flaw 2: Speedpass is the only archetype whose boost does not immediately provide power to break through checks. This forces speed pass to address counterplay through indirect means like pre-pass trap or removal, and post pass protection. Revealed information is almost always enough to anticipate incoming tactics.
Flaw 3: Speed Pass has built in momentum swings that are its biggest vulnerability. It is hard to stop once going, but hard to get going again once stopped. This is an inherent, built in flaw that dramatically worsens the impacts of the other two flaws. Speed pass can get off its first pass relatively consistently, but its difficult to select the right recipient. Once the initial passer is worn down, subsequent passes are nearly impossible.
“Counterplay is limited"
Balance and stall are entirely capable of using the available tools and leverage revealed information to beat hyper offense. It’s up to these players to figure out how to tech teams against their worst MUs while preserving their best. And that’s not done by slapping roar on skarmory + 1 and calling it a day. That is a team-building flaw that both Roro’s and Nal’s teams have demonstrably proven as flawed and punishable.
1.Defensive switching in an offense-pressured game state versus HO is a very costly, situational decision and should be considered as such.
2. You have a larger pool of resources and greater defensive synergy, which means that trading/risking is almost always more beneficial for you. Building with and playing to protect key defensive pieces is essential.
I think this is the crux of the issue here: Roar is the most optimal, widely useful and distributed anti-offense move in almost every scenario, except for one. HO can very easily, and in diverse ways, punish this lazy balance-building principle of 2 roars per team. If balanced players would incorporate nuanced building techniques and update their understanding of the HO game state, they could then practice more accurate and effective decision-making principles.
"Banning Speed Pass is the Only Way to Preserve Baton Pass in the Tier"
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I've read multiple pro-ban arguments that seem to imply that it's: "ban speed pass or else". But if Old Gen Council is so hostile to reasonable tier actions, which the refusal to address accuracy moves seems to indicate, then
....Is The Real Culprit A Combination of Spore + Baton Pass?
While it is true that agility pass does enable the most lethal sequences, there is another culprit to these strategies that is less skill-expressive and enables problematic lines beyond speed pass. In addition to accuracy lowering moves, if there is any action considered, it should be for the high-variance tactic that is enabling these uninteractive, linear strategies. Nal And Roro’s team’s both proved that hyper-offense can easily tech against phasing counterplay, and that this is a flaw in balance team-building. And yes, it is also true that both rely on sleep, whose variable duration often determines the success of these teams.
Demonstrating the Power of Spore + BP
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2420716860-4na856x7yq2hbjq0e7jom66ygvamm7kpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2420723056-vd0dx44xkxlna3y2wpptj89uipbdaefpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2420726935-9uon0cch4bxluj6o664ri3du8mkklvapw
I can whip together some replays to show the same power of Spore + BP with Tail Glow pass, but hopefully the above is enough to demonstrate that speed is not the inherent problem of this archetype, it’s a flawed path to increased lethality. However, in completely different roles on their according teams, Spore + Baton Pass enable both Roro's and Nal's teams to be uninteractive. However, I do have a few issues with this direction of action. I believe that both Tail Glow and Belly Drum pass, as more flawed variations of Spore + Speed Pass, have valuable and fun niches in the metagame. Furthermore, I can demonstrate a team that doesn’t use sleep as the means of creating space. Instead, it uses encore. So inherently, the problem isn’t ‘free turns + speed pass’. The variance/permanence of sleep duration leads to inconsistent outcomes.
Last edited:
