Announcement np: SS OU Suspect Process, Round 1 - Boom Boom Pow

[ausma]

I'm unfortunately a sad product of the absolute absurdity of this metagame.

Look, I'm not the kind of person to advocate for bans. In fact, mostly, I'm strictly against them... but Dynamax is a completely separate beast. We're talking about double HP (which, by the by, lets a Pokemon guaranteed live any kind of hit if you're at a decent % and have decent at best defenses), 3 super busted moves with giant buffs, and the ability to completely mitigate mental statuses and choice locks. This lets offense absolutely body the metagame; not only can you for the most part easily set up, but you can sweep while getting boosts. Stall and defensive playstyles as a whole are completely bodied, and it's not hard to see why--if you don't have something like a Ditto or a Gyarados to in some way abuse this mechanic, you will lose. You essentially need a Ditto or a Dynamax abuser of your own if you don't want to get absolutely torn apart, because quite frankly this mechanic is mindless in the hands of Hyper Offense and a player who can capitalize on even a tiny moniker of an opportunity.

Additionally, you'd think you'd have more variety with this meta since this mechanic on paper lets any remotely offensive Pokemon with a flying move or a fighting move do something, but you'd be so very very wrong. This meta only promotes the best of the best due to the absurd power creep and how certain Pokemon benefit far more dramatically from it than others; as such this lets literally nothing else have a splash unless you have a niche counter (and even then, Ditto outshines it). The only reason I haven't been able to get my REQs is literally either because of the opponent Dynamaxing a Pokemon with me not being able to telegraph it, or me not Dynamaxing something like Gyarados or Dragapult. Not only does that literally define the metagame to an absolute T, but it gives players no room at all to brainstorm or theorycraft without having something body them mindlessly. Dynamax, as it stands in this meta, defeats the purpose of everything competitive singles stands for. Creativity is nonexistent, the mechanic transforms the metagame into a mindless, nightmarish spiral of power creep, and tactful intuition is not rewarded and is instead punished.

I could dig further into this, but I would just be repeating what's already been said. This mechanic is undeniably a blast in the main game, on Battle Spot, and in OMs, but dear god, in Smogon singles, it's an overcentralizing, suffocating, biased nightmare. It's likely not as bad in doubles since there are many more defensive and offensive options to handle Dynamax, but in singles, you can't realistically react without ridiculous punishment or Dynamaxing yourself. Because of that, I would vote to ban it as a whole in Smogon singles at the bare minimum.

 

[cityscapes]

i feel like the pro ban side's points on dynamax being broken and invalidating long term planning or whatever might be hard to understand, so i'll try to do a better job here.

counterplay is one of the most important ways in which skill is displayed in pokemon. it's a foundational part of gameplans—identifying how to limit the opponent's win conditions with your counterplay, and how to get past opposing counterplay so your guy can win later on. this can range from set guessing/coverage ("if gren is ash i'll want fini healthy, if it's protean then my scarf kart will be really good here bc no shuriken"), smart trades with hazards/status/hp, bluffing specific sets to make your opponent believe they lack counterplay, and more.

dynamax limits counterplay because of how many different possibilities are available with it. you can dynamax any of your six pokemon, at any time. now, a maxed pokemon in itself is already hard enough to limit due to the hp boost and max moves, and when you allow players to be so flexible with when they use it, factoring all these possibilities into your gameplan is simply unfeasible. preparing for one pokemon that poses a big threat to your team is already hard enough, let alone three or more. trying to limit x mon dynamaxing can leave you open to y mon. there is less of a gap between "good" gameplans and "bad" ones, what you do doesn't have much of an impact because the opponent will always have potential threats with insufficient counterplay on your team.

dynamax is still worth exploring in other metagames, because the mechanic does allow for new types of skillful and creative play. but i can't see negating the impact of such a fundamental aspect of mons to have any positive long-term consequences for this game.

thanks for reading.

 

[peng]

So I've made a couple of huge posts in the metagame discussion thread but thought it'd be worth porting some of those points over here.

1) Dynamax massively increases the number of viable options per turn, which decreases skill and promotes guesswork
I think if we completely boil down what dynamax is to its core - temporarily ignore all metagame contexts, the best users, etc - it is the promotion of guesswork over skill that makes Dynamax an unhealthy addition to competitive Pokemon.

Pokemon is kinda unique among games in that it is turn-based, but both players select moves at the same time. This means that there will always be an element of "if I do A and he does B, then I win. But if he does C, then A is a bad choice". The inherent skill in a system like this is linked to how many options you have to choose from each turn, and in turn the relative risk:reward between all of those options. Since RBY, with a couple of exceptions, Pokemon has been a 9-option game - every game you can use one of 4 attacks, or switch to one of 5 other Pokemon. Amongst these 9 options, each will have its own risk:reward, and there is skill in using your time allowance to weigh-up those factors and decide on which option you think is best. There are a couple of interpretations of how to play the game that stem from this - a) some people are "prediction-heavy" and rely on high reward options depending on what they think the opponent will do and b) some people's gameplan is to put their opponent in a position where all 9 of their options are unfavourable e.g. either hyper offense or stall. But this 9-option format is proven and has been the basis of competitive Pokemon from the beginning.

Dynamax turns this on its head by every turn adding 4 more options - effectively there are now 2 options for each attack. e.g. now not only can you select flamethrower, but you also have the option of replacing it with Dynamax + Max Flare. The issue with this is that now every turn (until dynamax is first activated), you have to factor in that both you and your opponent have 13 options you could each take, a huge 169 ways that each turn could play out. With the time limit, it is unreasonable to expect people to be able to foresee every single way that a turn could go and make an informed decision.

The larger issue that comes from this is that on offensive Pokemon, all 4 of those dynamax + attack options are very, very good every turn. This is drastically increases the number of good choices that you have per turn, which reduces the skill in finding the good option to begin with. You're by default given a set of almost drawback-free options, such as Max Knuckle, Max Geyser, Max Airstream, which all benefit the user even if the opponent makes the perfect defensive move. This favours guesswork over "working out" which option is best.

2) Breaking choice items / Gorilla tactics
This has been covered to death but its another reason why Dynamax is ridiculous. Choice items are obviously incredible for many offensive Pokemon, but if you think about it, very very few Pokemon have ever been banned from OU based on their ability to abuse choice items (you could argue Scarf Genesect in BW but Rock Polish also contributed heavily to its brokeness). The reason for this is clear - despite being great items, the move-lock drawback is also equally huge which means no matter how strong the holder is, there is always some form of counterplay - be it Protect, hazard stacking, or in the case of offense, having super scary set-up sweepers that can hard punish certain choice-locked attacks.

Dynamax throws this out of the window, and says that, once per game at a time of your choosing, you can just break the move-lock and start using high power coverage attacks. This completely flips the table on traditional choice item counterplay, and worse yet, is almost completely unpredictable.

e.g. 1 The cliche situation here is Darmanitan-G vs Toxapex, which is an unbelievably common match-up and, owing to Regenerator and the ease of hazard removal in Gen 8, this is a head-to-head that can occur 5+ times over the course of a battle. Switching Toxapex into a predicted Icicle Crash / Flare Blitz should put the Toxapex user in a deserved winning position, but Dynamax turns the following turn into a 50:50 every single time. The only way to consistently win in this situation is to pair Toxapex with either Rotom-W or Rotom-H, which are basically the only Pokemon that can switch in on Max Quake without getting completely destroyed by a CB Icicle Crash if you guess wrong.

e.g. 2 Specs Dragapult also takes advantage of Dynamax in the same way. There aren't a huge number of reliable switch-ins to Specs Shadow Ball around, and those that can switch-in can't really handle a follow-up Max Lightning / Max Flare. Throw U-turn into the equation, and Dragapult has a ridiculous number of good attacking options every time it switches in. Thankfully it isn't super strong, but it still brings a huge deal of coin-flipping to the table owing to its good special coverage which can deal with most regular switch-ins.

3) Dynamax circumvents reasonable counterplay
The counterplay to Dynamax is considerably different to non-Dynamax Pokemon, which, combined with the unpredictability outlined in point 1, introduces a lot of "if he does X I win, if he does Y I win" situations.

Most notably, the added effects of all the Max attacks allow Dynamax user to circumvent traditional counterplay. You can't just switch around into resists to take-on the onslaught, because every single time its getting some kind of buff which will persist even when Dynamax is over. This is best abused by the specific abusers I'll list below, (e.g. Excadrill gets faster with Rock coverage, and buffs its defenses with its two STABs, meaning that its very difficult to revenge kill even after Dynamax). However, even the atypical, spur-of-the-moment Dynamaxers can become absurdly difficult to handle thanks to these boosts. e.g. Cinderace. Jellicent is one of the best switch-ins to normal Cinderace, but if it switches into a LO Max Flare it has to be incredibly healthy to survive the follow-up, Sun-boosted attack. Its for this reason that Dynamax can turn any offensive Pokemon, at any time, into an incredibly scary threat.

Even Protecting attacks are overcome by Dynamax, which break through with 25% damage and still give the assigned boost.

Another standard form of counterplay is that of residual damage - baiting attacks whilst allowing weather effects, status, or LO recoil to rack-up. This mechanic changes under Dynamax, halving the damage dealt, meaning that something as simple as landing a Toxic on a boosting sweeper may be either a very good or pretty bad option depending on if the opponent Dynamaxes or not.

Finally, slow-boosting sweepers in competitive Pokemon have always been kept in check by (p)hazing. Its been a staple in Pokemon games, and a go-to option as a last-ditch option against boosting sweepers, particularly in the form or Roar / Whirlwind which have far better distribution than true Haze. However, this is once again changed under Dynamax, which renders the user immune to forced switches. Its for this reason that something like Mandibuzz, which traditionally has been a great phazer with Whirlwind, is inconsistent at dealing with varying set-up sweepers. Add this in to the above reasoning, and just about every form of defensive counterplay is nerfed against Dynamax, considerably favouring offensive playstyles.

4) Specific set-up abusers
Beyond all of the above points, which cover how core mechanics of dynamax are inherently busted, I believe there are a handful of Pokemon which alone are overwhelming with Dynamax. In other words, I believe the Pokemon below are so good that even if you took the unpredictability of the mechanic out (i.e. you'd know for a fact that they are going to be the Dynamax user) they'd still be broken anyway.

Maybe controversial, but in my opinion SD Sand Rush Excadrill is the most busted Dynamax user. Try as you might, standard Corviknight is not a consistent counter because of the flinch chance from Rock Slide, or the sheer power of +2 Max Rockfall. Setting up your own sand is effectively a +2 boost vs the +1 of Max Airstream, combined with the respective defensive boosts of Max Steelsurge and Max Quake which mean that, even if you can take a hit, you probably can't KO it back. Add in to this that Life Orb only deals 5% recoil on Dynamax and you have a ridiculously powerful threat that is quite literally one flinch away from sweeping just about every single team in the game.

I'd legitimately argue this is the #2 scariest dynamax user. It sits and Bulk Ups on like 70% of the metagame, and then gets free speed boosts once it decides to start killing things with Max Airstream, which also eliminates recoil damage. Depending on the set (Substitute Bulk Up, Taunt Bulk Up, and Bulk up + 2 attacks), Corv can set-up on a huge number of would-be counters, meaning you'll often give it 2 free Bulk Ups by just trying to find out what its 4 slot is, and from there its GG.

I think people label Ditto as the "countersweep" Pokemon a little bit too quickly, I think its actually miles better than that. Because of Dynamax, Ditto doesn't need to copy your boosts to sweep you. Ditto can come in on an unboosted Pokemon, dynamax to get its own boosts with things like Max Airstream / Knuckle, and then reactivate its scarf to sweep you that way. I'm of the opinion that if you set-up and get counterswept vs Ditto then thats kinda your own fault, but there are definitely situations (normally involving U-turn + Ditto) where it can just Dynamax on you unboosted and go on a rampage on you that way - thats really damn hard to play around.

My biggest issue with Gyarados is that its 4th slot completely changes the counterplay to it, and that whilst you try and pivot to work out whether it has Power Whip / EQ / Substitute, its just sitting there getting speed boosts off you and setting rain up. You have to run Toxapex + Ferrothorn + Rotom-W to hands-down beat all Gyarados variants, and even then you're still losing a tons of health. Gyarados is also the biggist beneficiary of this "just sac mons vs Dynamax" mentality, with Moxie just putting it further out of reach as you try and snatch momentum.

Underrated, but NP Togekiss near autowins vs defensive / balance teams without Ditto or sand + drill. Probably the biggest winner from the loss of Chansey this generation.

Special mention: Where Togekiss ruins defensive teams, OTR Dynamax Hatterene runs riot on offense. Not in the same calibre as the above but still really damn good.

tl;dr dynamax is broken

 

[Scizor99]

I want to talk about the communications side, which is actually important, so please bear with me.

If (when) Dynamax is banned, this is probably going to be the biggest ban in Smogon history. Way more people use Smogon rules (or participate in non-Smogon officiated leagues/events that use Smogon rules as the ruleset) than you probably think. Although there is a vocal minority who vehemently oppose us, I think a much larger group is the people who have familiarity with what Smogon is but aren't knowledgeable about what our tiering policy is, how our formats work, etc., and either lurk or don't even come onto this forum, but are still affected by or interested in our decisions in some way.

Usually what happens is that in the blind voting thread, the final post simply says "X people voted ban and Y people voted no ban resulting in X/(X+Y) percent ban vote which exceeds the threshold, therefore __ is banned". For this, I don't think that's enough given the magnitude. I recommend a new thread in this subforum is created titled exactly this: "Announcement: Dynamax is banned from OU - Explanation & Information". Google "dynamax banned" and look at the results. You want the official ban announcement thread to be #1 on the search results rather than people finding the other stuff that comes up - this is going to be a phrase that is Googled tens of thousands of times at least.

This isn't about appeasing the anti-Smogoners. It's about good PR practice. This is not "some people are bashing us so let's respond to them." This is "we recognize that we are a large institution whose influence is widespread, and we just made a groundbreaking change so let's make everything clear."

This OP has a large explanation of why Dynamax is being suspected, but there are more things to cover than just that, plus you wouldn't know that a thread called "np: SS OU Suspect Process, Round 1 - Boom Boom Pow" contained Dynamax suspect/ban reasoning unless you clicked on it. I think the announcement thread should cover the following, in this order:

1. A reminder that we do not require anyone to use our rules (unless they're playing in our tournaments and stuff), we know that we are not the official Nintendo format, everyone is free to play by whatever rules they want to play by, and that Smogon's ultimate goal is to create a metagame in which player skill is as large of a factor in determining the outcome of games as reasonably possible.
   1. This is important to lead off with. We know a problem is that a lot of people don't understand these things. Why not explain this right off the bat to better educate people and make it so fewer people are misinformed?
2. An explanation of why Dynamax detracts from the goal of making a more competitive metagame.
   1. A lot of this can be taken from the first two posts in this thread
   2. Include why we decided to ban Dynamax as a whole, rather than just the most broken abusers, or do things such as make the Dynamax level 50% or ban Dynamax but not Gigantamax
3. A list of common counterarguments (common is important, even if they seem unreasonable. We all know that an insane number of people are going to ask "how could you ban the new major Gen 8 mechanic?". I know this isn't a good argument, but due to how common it'll be why not address it in the post? It's just like FAQs in a way). Then, for each common counterargument, an explanation of why it is insufficient.
   1. The Naganadel ban thread did a good job of this
4. A list of places/formats people can go to if they want to use Dynamax

Yes, I did just write a massive post talking about how a post should be made, and you guys might've been planning on doing this already. Regardless, this is probably going to draw never-before-seen levels of traffic, and the fewer people who are misinformed or left without information, the better. Thanks.

Before I give my thoughts, I would like to indicate that I am leaning "no ban" and would likely vote so if I had the reqs.

First of all, I would like to say that this is an excellent post. I think a lot of people don't realize the effect this ban would have on the broader competitive scene outside of Smogon. If Pokemon Showdown were simply an isolated platform meant to provide a more competitive environment for people who don't like cartridge play, I don't think you would see so many people defending such an obviously broken and overcentralizing mechanic. But the reality is that Smogon is often seen as synonymous with the competitive community at large, and has a tremendous effect on the cartridge format. Many competitive console players (VGC or not) use Showdown OU to test Pokemon and help build teams. Many strictly follow these rules and changes made to them in private matches. For much of the competitive community, it's either VGC rulesets or Smogon, and Smogon is generally viewed as far superior. If Dynamax is banned, people will be largely accepting here, but in the cartridge format, tons of top competitive players will stop using Dynamax and tell others to do the same. This could very well create chaos in a large section of the broader competitive community which has a respect or Smogon but is not active here, as you'll have people saying Dynamax is "cheating" and on the other hand people who are bewildered that they "shouldn't be allowed" to use the generation's defining mechanic.

Now, it's easy enough to say that people can technically follow whatever rules they want, but it isn't that simple. As I have mentioned before, Smogon and VGC are generally the most common known and respected rulesets, so to many it's a matter of choosing between the two rather than creating some hypothetical alternative. Furthermore, there is an impression that any "serious" players will use Smogon and the likelihood that many players will refuse private matches unless they agree not to use Dynamax.

I'm not sure if this is appropriate here, but I think it's important to have a discussion on the purpose and identity of Smogon. I see many users saying that the cartridge format doesn't matter in terms of Smogon's decision-making, as the role of the site is to create a reasonably balanced metagame that promotes healthy competitive play. To them, major, generation-defining mechanics shouldn't be protected if that would undermine a healthy metagame. While this may sound like common sense, I can't say I entirely agree. Pokemon Showdown is often described as a "simulator" of the console games. Many people who can't afford the game or don't have the time to build competitive Pokemon just to try them out come here. Of course, this is also a competitive community, and many rules and regulations have been put in place, such as the tiering system and various clauses. Anyone with an open mind and an appreciation for balance should come to understand that these rules do, in large part, promote a better metagame and in fact "fix" the cartridge meta. However, I would heavily caution against making sweeping changes (i.e. a Dynamax ban) that would make the Smogon game drastically different from the console meta, as Showdown would, arguably, no longer be simulating Gen 8 and creating a different game entirely. Numerous Pokemon will have their identity determined by the result, and as many people use Smogon as a resource to see which Pokemon are viable in the cartridge meta (which Smogon has up until now has still had considerable parity with), tiering will become considerably less relevant and applicable to non-Smogon play. This will likely create considerable demand for a separate Dynamax meta, which as noted here would likely make things overly complicated.

As messy as it might seem, I think the best course of action is opt for complex bans (such as a mod on choice breaking) and banning the absolute worst abusers of the mechanic. I think this falls in line with the spirit of how Smogon has treated previous new mechanics, and while Dynamax is a different beast entirely, it is clear that Dynamax was intended to be the defining feature of the gen competitively despite how nonsensical if can be. I will thus recommend NO BAN, with the hope that users understand how absolutely critical this decision will be.

 

[CataclysmRising]

Hi, i go by Flawless Creation on PS. I was able to achieve voting reqs with 81+ GXE easily on the first day in a little over 2 hours, and have consistently been top 25 on both Gen 8 OU Beta ladder (before it was removed) and regular Gen 8 OU ladder before the suspect test. I'm typically an extremely anti ban individual, however for this particular suspect its so crystal clear for me. Dynamax (and by extension Gigantamax) is so blantantly broken that it warrants a BAN.

There are a multitude of individual factors that push Dynamax over the edge, and when you combine all these factors together it makes for one of the most broken mechanics ever to exist in Pokemon. Comparing this mechanic to other mechanics such as Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves is just absurd and incorrect.

1) THE DOUBLE HP BOOST FOR 3 TURNS. The most obvious visual effect of dynamaxing is the instant double HP every Pokemon can obtain for 3 turns. This, for all intents and purposes, essentially means that everyone can choose a Pokemon to have Zygarde Complete levels of HP for 3 turns, and I don't think anyone here would be disputing how broken that was when it was quickbanned at the start of SM OU.

I don't think some people in this thread realize just how bulky a Dynamax pokemon is. For example, Gyarados is probably the most dominant Dynamax Pokemon atm, and for good reason. Due to Gyarados' snowball effect when it Dynamaxes, a bunch of players resort to Ditto to reverse check Gyarados if it ever sets up. However, Ditto copies every single stat besides HP, so it doesn't copy the Dynamax HP boost, meaning Ditto actually LOSES to most Dynamax users (including Gyarados) 1 v 1 because the Pokemon it transforms into has double HP. Just for simplicity, lets assume that your opponent sends out their Gyarados vs your Seismitoad. You quickly switch out Seismitoad for fear of grass knot, and lets just say you go to another Pokemon, such as Dragapult, while the Gyarados uses DD on the switch. Turn 2, the Gyarados dynamaxes, and OHKOes the Dragapult with Dynamax Bounce, and gets the moxie and speed boost, so Gyarados is now at +2/+2, with 2 more turns of Dynamax.

This is the sort of logic that pisses me off. In your example you switch into a pokemon that gets outsped and OHKO, and then they snowball from there. Wow what a broken mechanic!

Maybe switch into Corsola instead? +1 Gyarados gets walled easily by him, and you can force the switch or burn/sap him and then set rocks to prevent him from coming back easily.

I'm pretty new to competitive but this argument is so stupid it hurts. If your definition of a broken mechanic is "I don't think I should need to even think about how to deal with it" then sure you're right it's super broken...

Also to be clear I'm too new to even bother trying to give an opinion, but I'm seeing some really bad ban arguments that make me question if they're even bothering to try and figure out the new mechanic or not.

 

[qways]

This is the sort of logic that pisses me off. In your example you switch into a pokemon that gets outsped and OHKO, and then they snowball from there. Wow what a broken mechanic!

Maybe switch into Corsola instead? +1 Gyarados gets walled easily by him, and you can force the switch or burn/sap him and then set rocks to prevent him from coming back easily.

I'm pretty new to competitive but this argument is so stupid it hurts. If your definition of a broken mechanic is "I don't think I should need to even think about how to deal with it" then sure you're right it's super broken...

Also to be clear I'm too new to even bother trying to give an opinion, but I'm seeing some really bad ban arguments that make me question if they're even bothering to try and figure out the new mechanic or not.

Ok you put corsola on your team to check gyarados. now the other player puts np hydreigon on his team. And np togekiss. And now there is no way anymore to build a team that checks all of those so you put Ditto on your team to sack one mon and revenge kill with ditto.
What people here want is a meta where you can have multiple diffrent ways of building Teams that can atleast check all individual opponent mons.
For this to happen you cant have too many threats that have too few and/or obscure checks/conters. But Dynamax creates many threats with only few checks and counters. Thats why its seen as a problem.

 

[MikeDawg]

If we don't ban dynamax, a significant number of mons will certainly be banned because of dynamax. There are a few particularly egregious candidates atm (e.g. Gyarados, Hawlucha, etc.), but once we ban them, more will undoubtedly pop up. The power & bulk increase from dynamaxing is by far the most extreme mechanic we've seen since evasion-boost moody, not to mention the free stat boosts and weather/terrain. The only thing keeping those other broken users in check is the fact that the top dogs are better, and you can only dynamax once.

You can't even really predict dynamaxing like you could with megas/z-moves, because the player doesn't have to decide in the teambuilder. You can guess which mon your opponent intends to dynamax, but they aren't locked into that intention; they can dynamax whatever mon they want whenever they want. And even if you know exactly when they're going to do it... cool. Good luck dealing with 140bp moves that boost stats or set weather/terrain. You get to play around that for multiple turns, then manage whatever comes in after to take advantage of the field effects or set up on a defensive answer (unless you get outright swept by the dynamax mon). The limiting effect that will have on teambuilding (e.g. ditto) and decision-making speaks for itself.

Let's not make the same mistake we did with baton pass and gen 5 weather. It's better to target the problematic mechanic, not its symptoms.

 

[Mike81401]

I've given up on getting reqs bc it's clear I'm not going to make it, but I still wanted to chip in and share my opinion.

Dynamax needs to go if we want a healthy, stable meta. Multiple users have already stated the main arguments for banning dynamax, and I agree we need it gone. The meta right now is full of guesswork as to when you're losing a mon/2/3. And when it comes to THESE monsters (, , , ) mispredicting your opponent's dynamax can mean game over, especially if your defensive checks (eg: , , ) are weakened or dead. Particularly, I've found Max Knuckle, Max Airstream, and Max Geyser to be the most blatantly broken Max Moves almost solely due to their secondary effects which can set up for a sweep once dynamax ends. Although as these monsters (, , ) show us, secondary effects are only the icing on the . Dynamax also negates choice items for 3 turns, allowing the aforementioned to go ham on supposed "checks" and nab a crucial OHKO/2HKO and allow the dynamaxer to sweep or break the opponent's defensive core so something else (, , , ) can clean up what's left. Not to mention, all of the viable max moves except Knuckle and Ooze have at least 130 BP, which is Draco Meteor levels of power, and can severely dent/KO anything standing in front of them bar the VERY fattest walls.

TL;DR ban dynamaxing for the good of the meta

 

[100 Hoes Kaido]

I will address some points in the meantime, regarding the arguments for not banning Dynamax, as I'm afraid it's the only thing I can do right now, sadly.

It's the new generation "gimmick"/feature or whatever:

I personally don't like this concept itself as mega evolutions, weather wars and partially z moves can go fuck themselves, yes I'd pay to transform bw into DPPt with team preview and explosion being shit, and I don't see anything wrong with it, "you just want to play older generations" miss me with that gay shit, there's no way SS will become like DP no matter what, and it's literally impossible for it to become like Usum due to the dex cut. but enough of that, bw is finally dead. Gamefreak probably thought "let's make the 'mons super big to attract kids" not "let's intoxicate these gaijins playing singles" so eh, I don't think they'd care whatever Smogon does, but if I have to see the thing objectively, first of all, who decides what is the specific gimmick, for example? Take bw for example, isn't Team preview, at the time, the first instance it appeared on cartridge games a much suited candidate for this, rather than two 'mons getting weather abilities? Just as in this gen, the cut we had in the dex, allows us to start anew with the metagame, removing many prominent stuff in previous gens, isn't this the new gimmick? The fact that we decided to use this as the main Metagame rather than the National Dex tier?

It's convoluted and an important mechanic rather than a single usable 'mon:
Dynamax being banned does not hurt the "spirit" of cartridge battles, it just hopes (if you're in a cartridge and playing Smogon OU) that you won't press that button, just like it hopes you won't bring Garchomp in a DP battle when the nintendo DS still had Wi-Fi, it's really the same concept, yes, it's a mechanic, Garchomp is a 'mon, but there really is not much of a difference, both players agree to a set of rules before battles, I remember the freeze clause, for example. It's a clause Shoddy Battle had at the time, that blocked you from freezing more than a single 'mon, exactly like your Spore will fail the instant you made more than one 'mon asleep, this is not possible in the games, freeze clause has been removed for a long time, but you still have stuff like sleep clause that will act outside of what in a cartridge game is allowed, so, just like in Showdown, dynamax would be banned, and you trying to spore more than one single 'mon would be blocked by the Simulator, while in cartridge battles, you'd have to agree to both sleep clause and "dynamax clause" and suffer the consequences if you break the rule with whoever leads the tour etc etc. I'm saying this so that we may come to an agreement: it has been more than a decade that Smogon made choices to enforce competitiveness in the game, some of these times also going outside of what is possible ("but it failed" appearing after you try to put asleep another 'mon) in cartridge games in order to enforce these rules, Dynamax being banned wouldn't fuck over the spirit of cartridge battles, or, at least, said spirit has been fucked long before, back in early DP.

It's not about the mechanic, but several 'mons being broken with it:
First of all, I would like to thank the Council for not going for another Aldaron's proposal, or the clown mess of the Baton Pass ban.
Yes, some 'mons are better than others, no rocket science here, but what will you ban? What are you going to do after those bans other 'mons will rise up and end up being as worse or more than the previous ones? Will you ban those too, or will you capitulate, saying that Smogon has become too "ban-happy?". If this were a concept such as Mega Evolutions, your point would be sound, because a limited pool of 'mons can mega evolve and change the way they play, sometimes in negative ways such as Kanga, Mence, Mawile or Gengar, but Dynamaxing is something much worse, because any 'mon, at any turn they can dynamax, and sure, you can play the game, delude yourself that you can see the future, but at the end of the day, every turn you need to play there is always that fear in the back of your mind, of the situation potentially changing for the worse, in a drastic way you can potentially not recover from, just because someone can press a button, without any real repercussions, banning Gyarados and co. cannot solve that, they are just victims of you not wanting to let go of Dynamax Kinda like Torn-therian

Dynamax adds a new layer of strategy for experienced players:
So does Shadow Tag Mega Gengar, so does Mega Kangaskhan, hell, at the end of Battle Spot ORAS it became more of a liability to pick MKanga in a battle, but that didn't really stop them from getting banned in OU, now, did they? We can deconstruct ANYTHING in order for it to bring a new layer of strategy, it happens when two or more people with functioning brains act. But let's see what this strategy entails to:
Imagine player A using specs Hatterene and clicking Psychic without a care in the world, imagine now Player B doing a predict, risky, perhaps, but still one, if you don't like it, think of Player B sacking a 'mon that only died to psychic, instead of Dazzling, a poison 'mon, let's go with Toxapex and switches in their CBTar, now, my problem with any argument about "skills" regarding Dynamax, is exactly this, well, not the only one but still, you have player A clicking without thinking too much Psychic, and Player B managed to predict that, sounds good, right? But what has Player B obtained with this display? If it were a normal battle, Player A should pay the price, and take that Stone Edge inside their ass, but this is a situation when Dynamaxing is allowed, remember? So Player B isn't really the one rewarded, instead, thanks to Dynamax, regardless if you even Dynamax this turn, mind you, player A can force another coinflip, and so the battle will go on until this shitty mechanic exits the match. Dynamax by its very nature does not promote competitive play, because you can literally do whatever the fuck you want without repercussions, even if you don't dynamax Turn x, the option is always there, and the opponent has to take that shit into consideration every turn he fights you, there are of course, many other examples, this one a random scenario i came up with in my head, you can say the same about choiced Darmanitan fighting Toxapex, and it does not stops with choice items, anything that can ohko you with a max move, but not normal move is another coinflip.

Good Players stll win a fair bit, look at their GXE, maybe we're over exaggerating:
Let's not beat around the bush, GXE and Glicko aren't exactly not manipulable with things like decay and shit, but what has caught my attention, at least to my knowledge, I did not follow Naganadiel and Zygarde's ban, is that this is the first time the OU Suspect does not have a specific ladder to it, what does that mean? That a guy interested in voting here, can easily farm points by battling 10 years old on the main ladder, as that is the one with the most people, by a long margin, besides, 80 GXE ain't really that much, hell, I glanced, and I believe nobody has 90+GXE there.
This decision for the ladder, whether it was intentional or not, really says a lot.

Smogon does not need to make a competitive tier, just something that closely resembles the cartridge game:
No. And perhaps, lurk more.


We need more novelty, and Dynamax fits the bill:
Again, I know the OP said Dynamax is the "feature" of this gen, but you cannot ignore what the dex cut brought to the table. I stricly disagree and find this issue entirely subjective, as I believe the cut to be more important for the competitive side, and so qualifies as a feature more than Dyna. You no longer have to cry about how Landorus-Therian is "overcentralizing" or whatever, rejoyce! Besides, didn't we get Uber nuked during this Gen? We could always bring that there alongside the legendary Sifs if you REALLY, REALLY, want it, of course, that's up to the Smogon staff if we'll even have an uber tier to begin with, but for now, let's keep the focus on the (hopefully) Dyna-less OU, shall we?

Both players can Dynamax, so it balances things out:
No! Why am I reading this? Literally anything can be used for this argument, I seriously hope you also protest to make Arceus OU and unbanning ohko moves

Dynamax might be keeping in checks other threats such as Darmanitan:
Great, the sooner we ban this shit, the sooner we can see if other things really deserve the banhammer, instead of wasting months on banning billions of Dynamax abusers, and using it as a shitty band-aid.

Look, I can pull magic numbers from the calc all you want, about how Hawlucha is ridiculous and so on, but it barely scratches the surface, some of the posts also say that you need to use other stuff like Trick Room or Topsy Turvy in order to "counter" dynamax, basically, you need to be hip and cool with your thinking and yadda yadda yadda, but what will you do with your Trick Room when it's Hatterene instead of Gyarados? Can your topsy turvy user survive before even using that move? Hey, wait a minute, there are only 2 users of this move and they're both trash.
This is not "People should use Arcanine in order to stop Mega Mawile, lol I'm so smart", Dynamax is not a threat, that's the thing, it's not something that you think when you build, or more precisely it's IMPOSSIBLE for you to take into consideration, did you seriously build a team that took onto consideration the possibility that every 6 'mons could mega and they didn't even need to use a specific item for it?Oh, and they also happen to function normally without going mega? No, because that's just insane, and this is the problem with Dynamax, it enforces coinflips every turn, because it's a mechanic that only bring positives for those that use it, it's a mechanic that is always present, like a looming shadow until it's used, and then, it might be too late, it's a mechanic that might save your ass, because, regardless of your predictions (see my previous example with Hatterene and TTar), your opponent can always dynamax, and both of your thinkings, one relegated for Dyna-less play, and the other for Dyna play, both are correct choices, see, fifty fifty? I don't want to pretend I know the precise percentage, because let's face it, it's impossible, but both options are correct, every single turn, so every single turn you might as well launch a coin, and while, flipping a coin every turn might be kinda funny in a Discord server with other people watching, the reality is that it kills competitiveness, or, more precisely, it kills the purpose of Smogon.

 

[Robot7620]

3) Banning Individual Mons that Abuse Dynamax Does NOT fix the Problem. There's 2 problems with the "just ban Pokemon instead" argument. First, banning mons that abuse Dmax now only opens the door for underused abusers such as Charizard, Crawdaunt, Mew, Kommo-o, and others to enter the tier and continue making things somewhat of a hassle. Something will ALWAYS be the best Dmax abuser. Secondly, banning OU mons does not fix the issues of lower tiers and Dynamax, which I assume will quickban Dynamax on their own, or when this succeeds.

I've seen many Anti-Dynamaxers use this as a counterargument. The problem with this, is that we haven't actually tested this. How does anyone know said Charizard, Crawduant, Mew, Kommo-o will suddenly become the new Gyarados or Lucha. This is pure theory, and if your assertion proves to be true, I'll certainly let Dynamax go without any further argument. I'm not even firmly in the pro-dynamax camp; it's just so many were saying stuff like thinking about the future but y'all don't have future-reading skills (hopefully) and you can't just say this for sure.

 

[Adamant Rotom-W]

I've seen many Anti-Dynamaxers use this as a counterargument. The problem with this, is that we haven't actually tested this. How does anyone know said Charizard, Crawduant, Mew, Kommo-o will suddenly become the new Gyarados or Lucha. This is pure theory, and if your assertion proves to be true, I'll certainly let Dynamax go without any further argument. I'm not even firmly in the pro-dynamax camp; it's just so many were saying stuff like thinking about the future but y'all don't have future-reading skills (hopefully) and you can't just say this for sure.

It's impossible to see the future, but we can look to the past for some similar examples to help us predict it. When Swift Swim was banned in Gen 5, did that make rain unviable? Did it patch up the fact that it was the de facto best weather in the meta? Most people that played Gen 5 stand by the fact that, regardless of that ban, it remained the top dog of the generation. No matter what you did, unless Drizzle and the other weather abilities were banned, weather, specifically rain, would remain as the main gen defining gimmick of Gen 5, and it did. This example demonstrates that no matter how much we try to maintain a gimmick, it will still be strong if it's overcentralizing.

Comparing it to Pokémon bans, whenever a meta-defining mon gets banned, do we not see it's checks and counters drop, and mons that were countered by it/them rise? Think back to the Zygarde ban that single-handedly revived Rotom-W, the Aegislash ban in Gen 6 that made fighting-types not named Mega Lopunny usable, and the Mega Metagross ban that had everyone finally using different megas and giving Diancie some room to breathe. These are just small examples but hopefully they get the point across.

Bans are always followed with a shift in power. When the strong mons get banned, other, previously weaker mons take their place as the strongest. How far could Smogon go, banning mons instead of Dynamax when it's what's making them broken in the first place? Do we just ban any good offensive mon? Why keep Dynamax in when it's what enables this lack of balance? It's not like Gyarados or Hawlucha are broken because of a new move, ability or item. They become broken when they double their HP and get to fire off 3 Z-moves that buff their stats.

 

[OrangeFluffy Sheep]

I've seen a few people post that stall will rule if dynamax gets banned and I wonder how.

Then can the council assure us that the metagame wont become a stall fest ruled by the following mons:
Toxapex, Ferrothorn, Galar corsola,Corviknight?

You notice none of those guys resist dark or ghost? Rotom-H runs wild on three of them, and doesn't really care what corsola does and can strip its eviolite, like, man, if Dynamax is the only idea you have for breaking that, then I think that's on you.

And are we assuming the only option besides unstoppable giant doom monsters is full-on defense? Why can't it balance out or end up somewhere else? Is there something inherently wrong with defensive play that makes even the remote chance it appears something to dread and avoid?

Because what we have with Dynamax is the exact opposite and it is insufferable.

 

[moocows]

I've seen many Anti-Dynamaxers use this as a counterargument. The problem with this, is that we haven't actually tested this. How does anyone know said Charizard, Crawduant, Mew, Kommo-o will suddenly become the new Gyarados or Lucha. This is pure theory, and if your assertion proves to be true, I'll certainly let Dynamax go without any further argument. I'm not even firmly in the pro-dynamax camp; it's just so many were saying stuff like thinking about the future but y'all don't have future-reading skills (hopefully) and you can't just say this for sure.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is we're making the big ban-dynamax-or-not decision at the very beginning of this generation with the intention of sticking to it, which would mean that "don't ban dynamax so we can test dynamax further" is not a valid argument in the context of this suspect test.

No one wants to exhaustively test dynamax through multiple rounds (and months) to determine whether dynamax minus ABC Pokemon plus XYZ complex bans is preferable to no dynamax. If we don't ban dynamax now, it's here to stay.

 

[Of Moose & Men]

If we don't ban dynamax now, it's here to stay.

We can most certainly re-suspect test Dynamaxing if it ends up staying (somehow) and gets to be (somehow) more of an obvious problem. Quite sure there's no real limit to the number of suspects it sees. I would hope we wouldn't just continue on with an unhealthy meta on the grounds of "welp, we already suspected it. Not much else we can do". Hell, we've suspected Drill like a million times in BW.

Of course, this is the councils decision ultimately, but if it is a big enough issue, and it somehow manages to skate by this suspect, we would likely be in this position again.

 

[Zach Parrott]

I've seen many Anti-Dynamaxers use this as a counterargument. The problem with this, is that we haven't actually tested this. How does anyone know said Charizard, Crawduant, Mew, Kommo-o will suddenly become the new Gyarados or Lucha. This is pure theory, and if your assertion proves to be true, I'll certainly let Dynamax go without any further argument. I'm not even firmly in the pro-dynamax camp; it's just so many were saying stuff like thinking about the future but y'all don't have future-reading skills (hopefully) and you can't just say this for sure.

The fact that mons like these are being used as good Dynamax Pokemon despite the existence of Gyara or Lucha should be pretty telling. Without Gyara, Lucha, and the like around, suddenly you see pokes like Gengar/Polteageist, Kommo-o/Haxorus, Charizard, Braviary, hell even Rotom-Fan being used even more frequently due to the fact that their main max competition is gone. It wouldn't solve the problem, it'd just shift it onto something else.

 

[SirFred131]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is we're making the big ban-dynamax-or-not decision at the very beginning of this generation with the intention of sticking to it, which would mean that "don't ban dynamax so we can test dynamax further" is not a valid argument in the context of this suspect test.

No one wants to exhaustively test dynamax through multiple rounds (and months) to determine whether dynamax minus ABC Pokemon plus XYZ complex bans is preferable to no dynamax. If we don't ban dynamax now, it's here to stay

First off, I'm not a competitive player, and I've been busy with finals so I haven't even gotten to play the game properly yet. The closest thing I have to experience with the current generation is watching Pokeaim, Blunder, and Emvee, so most likely no one cares about my opinion.

That said, I think making this kind of quick-snap all or nothing decision to ban is a mistake, and not for competitive reasons. As I've said, I haven't really played the game. My friend's in the same boat, he's busy but he's slowly playing through the full game before he exposes himself much to the community to avoid spoilers, to an extent. When we finally get the time, we're going to want to play together on Showdown. We've used the tier lists in the past so that we can quickly identify which pokemon are good and which aren't. But when we get here and find out that the Dynamax mons aren't here, I know it's going to feel bad. Why?

Let's face it, Dynamax is a cool mechanic. Say what you want about the balance, but it lets you make one pokemon of your choice the star of the show, and it doesn't have to be the same one every game. In this thread I've seen a lot of "Well, some pokemon are OP if you build them around Dynamaxing, and that won't change". My friend would love that. He likes to figure out in advance what one thing he wants to do with his team, and then do whatever he can to support that idea, even if he has to sacrifice a lot going in on an idea that's not great. I've also seen a lot of "It's too unpredictable, you can just Dynamax any pokemon on any turn. Its flexibility means you can't figure out how to win just from team preview". That's the kind of game play I love. You don't need to go all in on one thing in team build, you can adapt to your opponent's strategy on the fly. If you can outplay them and minimize their advantages and exploit their weaknesses, denying their game plan, you can win. If you let them do their thing, you lose. It seems like it would showcase the differences in our play styles in a way that feels cool and impactful. And I think it would have a similar appeal to many other players too. It's so flexible it can always fit into your play style, and it lets you make a pokemon shine, no matter what it is, in a way that you really couldn't in previous gens. That feels good to people.

So what will we do if we can't play Dynamax here? We don't have the time to train full competitive teams in game, and we couldn't use your tier lists anymore since it's for a different game, but we could try that anyway I guess. I suspect we just won't play the game as much though. You're creating a barrier to entry, setting yourself out as a different meta game that looks less cool. That makes people who've slowly been playing through the game, or who pick it up later, look at Showdown and see it as something different. You're making it harder for people to get into competitive pokemon. This is bad for the community. You could, of course, mitigate this factor by making a separate meta-game for including Dynamax, but this would again split the community, and if that was the plan we wouldn't need this suspect test in the first place.

If Dynamax is so broken that it just can't make a healthy meta-game there wouldn't be a choice but to ban it, but seeing so many people vote to ban when we haven't even tried anything yet just rubs me the wrong way. Banning a core game mechanic should be a last-ditch effort after you've tried your best and it still didn't work, not a first step before even looking at banning any mons. At least, not when there are a bunch of people who still don't want to ban it. Jumping to big decisions like this is the fastest way to alienate parts of your player base.

 

[Finchinator]

First off, I'm not a competitive player, and I've been busy with finals so I haven't even gotten to play the game properly yet. The closest thing I have to experience with the current generation is watching Pokeaim, Blunder, and Emvee, so most likely no one cares about my opinion.

If you lack firsthand experience, you should not be posting to begin with. Your entire argument is based off of theory and secondhand experience then, which is especially unreliable considering that you just said you are not a competitive player. I think you should lurk more and play some before posting in the future.

I respect that you care about the game and perhaps the community, but it is made clear throughout your post that you do not have a grasp on what is going on within the game and your argument is merely in favor of preservation without true substance to back it. We are not in an arena where being "cool" or "fun" are able to be employed in an argumentative sense as these are both arbitrary and individual-specific terms; the only things that can be definitively argued are those that are outlined in the tiering policy (i.e: competitiveness, banworthiness, brokenness, etc. or lack thereof) or those that are fact-based opinions. We are also not here to cater to anything besides the Smogon SS OU metagame, which is the limited scope of our discussion and why a lot of what you said is simply inapplicable.

I am glad that casual players care about the metagame and want to get involved. There have been a lot of newer posters in this thread and throughout the subforum. A lot of newer players have approached me on PS, too. I hope that you and all of the others that are interested one day find the time to play the metagame more. I also hope to see a lot of new posters and contributors on the forum so we can keep growing our community! However, I also believe that you cannot find yourself engaged in a serious discussion without fulfilling the prerequisite of understanding the situation fully and experiencing the topic firsthand. To all future posters, try to play the tier and understand the situation or at very least lurk a bit before making your case for either side.

 

[Lerart]

I wasn't planning on adding more to the topic, but I've seen too many people comparing Ditto to Lando-T.

Both Pokémon have high usage for completely different reasons. Lando-T just kept a lot of the physical sweepers/wallbreakers in check. Can you imagine how M-Lopunny, M-Medichan, Garchomp, Kartana, and many other strong physical attackers would be without Lando-T? We would have to ban SO many mons, it's ridiculous. Yes, he was a good scarfer, a good lead, a good physical wall, a good pivot, probably the best glue, but he was never everything at once, and just like megas, you can assume what role Lando-T is taking on team preview. He wasn't necessary to win, and he was not really that hard to check, revenge kill and even wall. Lando-T had a high usage because he was really easy to slap on a team and make it work, not because he won games by himself.
Ditto, on the other hand, is pretty much a necessity on your team if you don't want to lose to Dynamax. Having similar usage does NOT mean they do the same thing. Lando couldn't enter, be faster than your entire team, have access pretty much 3 Z-Moves (but better), and double his HP so he can't be killed by Ice Beam.

I don't think a lot of the people here understand how important Suspect Tests are. We don't want to ban things, we want to touch the game the least as possible, but some things are just too much. That's why banning the mons that abuse Dmax better is a bad idea (not only that, but there will ALWAYS be someone to take the same spot as the banned Dmax abuser). We WANT as many options and variety as possible, but Dmax will (And already does) make the game stale and monotone. It's just a question of who will Dynamax on the right turn.

 

[SirFred131]

If you lack firsthand experience, you should not be posting to begin with. Your entire argument is based off of theory and secondhand experience

Sorry. I knew when I posted it that it had no place in a serious discussion of what was best for a competitive setting. I have opinions about whether it's actually balanced or not, but I didn't share them because I lack that experience. But the experience I do have is the experience of someone who watches the game and is interested in playing more. Things like 'cool' and 'fun' are impossible to quantify, but they're what people see from the outside. They're what make people decide whether to start playing or not. Theory and secondhand experience are all new players have, and right now they're making me want to play. More so than they likely would without Dynamax.

We are also not here to cater to anything besides the Smogon SS OU metagame,

I get that, but at the same time, it's Smogon SS OU. This decision doesn't just affect one little place in Pokemon, it has implications for other parts of the community and people who aren't even part of the community yet. We can try to be completely objective and only value the maximum strategic depth, but this is a controversial issue. There're good points on both sides. It's impossible to come to an objectively correct decision. In the end, this is a game and games are meant to be 'fun'. 'Fun' is subjective, so all you can do is gather a bunch of view points and try your best. I thought I'd add mine, since it's different from what normally shows up in threads like this. Hopefully you'll consider the implications of this decision on the rest of the community, not just the people who're already here and here to stay.


Alright, I've said my bit. I'll go get my uninformed opinions out of here before I embarrass myself further.

 

[Talpr0ne]

Before I give my thoughts, I would like to indicate that I am leaning "no ban" and would likely vote so if I had the reqs.

First of all, I would like to say that this is an excellent post. I think a lot of people don't realize the effect this ban would have on the broader competitive scene outside of Smogon. If Pokemon Showdown were simply an isolated platform meant to provide a more competitive environment for people who don't like cartridge play, I don't think you would see so many people defending such an obviously broken and overcentralizing mechanic. But the reality is that Smogon is often seen as synonymous with the competitive community at large, and has a tremendous effect on the cartridge format. Many competitive console players (VGC or not) use Showdown OU to test Pokemon and help build teams. Many strictly follow these rules and changes made to them in private matches. For much of the competitive community, it's either VGC rulesets or Smogon, and Smogon is generally viewed as far superior. If Dynamax is banned, people will be largely accepting here, but in the cartridge format, tons of top competitive players will stop using Dynamax and tell others to do the same. This could very well create chaos in a large section of the broader competitive community which has a respect or Smogon but is not active here, as you'll have people saying Dynamax is "cheating" and on the other hand people who are bewildered that they "shouldn't be allowed" to use the generation's defining mechanic.

Now, it's easy enough to say that people can technically follow whatever rules they want, but it isn't that simple. As I have mentioned before, Smogon and VGC are generally the most common known and respected rulesets, so to many it's a matter of choosing between the two rather than creating some hypothetical alternative. Furthermore, there is an impression that any "serious" players will use Smogon and the likelihood that many players will refuse private matches unless they agree not to use Dynamax.

I'm not sure if this is appropriate here, but I think it's important to have a discussion on the purpose and identity of Smogon. I see many users saying that the cartridge format doesn't matter in terms of Smogon's decision-making, as the role of the site is to create a reasonably balanced metagame that promotes healthy competitive play. To them, major, generation-defining mechanics shouldn't be protected if that would undermine a healthy metagame. While this may sound like common sense, I can't say I entirely agree. Pokemon Showdown is often described as a "simulator" of the console games. Many people who can't afford the game or don't have the time to build competitive Pokemon just to try them out come here. Of course, this is also a competitive community, and many rules and regulations have been put in place, such as the tiering system and various clauses. Anyone with an open mind and an appreciation for balance should come to understand that these rules do, in large part, promote a better metagame and in fact "fix" the cartridge meta. However, I would heavily caution against making sweeping changes (i.e. a Dynamax ban) that would make the Smogon game drastically different from the console meta, as Showdown would, arguably, no longer be simulating Gen 8 and creating a different game entirely. Numerous Pokemon will have their identity determined by the result, and as many people use Smogon as a resource to see which Pokemon are viable in the cartridge meta (which Smogon has up until now has still had considerable parity with), tiering will become considerably less relevant and applicable to non-Smogon play. This will likely create considerable demand for a separate Dynamax meta, which as noted here would likely make things overly complicated.

As messy as it might seem, I think the best course of action is opt for complex bans (such as a mod on choice breaking) and banning the absolute worst abusers of the mechanic. I think this falls in line with the spirit of how Smogon has treated previous new mechanics, and while Dynamax is a different beast entirely, it is clear that Dynamax was intended to be the defining feature of the gen competitively despite how nonsensical if can be. I will thus recommend NO BAN, with the hope that users understand how absolutely critical this decision will be.

Anyone who uses the OU ladder to test his cart teams is, for lack of a better word, misguided, as the format itself is completely different from cart for reasons that go far beyond Dynamax (chiefly, the fact that Smogon OU is 6v6 and Battle Stadium Singles is 3v3). Showdown does offer ladders that replicate the rulesets of cart formats, and those will obviously not ban Dynamax or anything else ever.
While admittedly greater in scope, the issue of causing a rift between cartridge and simulator is pretty much the same in principle. From Pokémon bans, which make previously oppressed or outclassed mons more viable, to playing 6v6 instead of 3v3, which enhances the viability of playstyles such as stall and spikes stacking, to the decision of allowing everything transferable from past generations, allowing Pokemon such as Clefable to access moves such as Softboiled that could be obtained for the last time in Emerald. All these things add up and create an insurmontable rift between the two metas, even if Dynamax weren't banned. If we banned individual mons like Gyarados, wouldn't players that for whatever reason use OU as if it was an accurate reflection of cartridge be left unprepared for it once they try to play on their consoles? And any suggestion of creating complex clauses and custom Dynamax mechanics would only exaccerbate this issue even more (why can this noob Dynamax a pokemon with flying move/change moves with his Dynamax choice pokemon? CHEATER!).

 

[Colonel M]

Anyone who uses the OU ladder to test his cart teams is, for lack of a better word, misguided, as the format itself is completely different from cart for reasons that go far beyond Dynamax (chiefly, the fact that Smogon OU is 6v6 and Battle Stadium Singles is 3v3). Showdown does offer ladders that replicate the rulesets that replicate cart formats, and those will obviously not ban Dynamax or anything else ever.
While admittedly greater in scope, the issue of causing a rift between cartridge and simulator is pretty much the same in principle. From Pokémon bans, which make previously oppressed or outclassed mons more viable, to playing 6v6 instead of 3v3, which enhances the viability of playstyles such as stall and spikes stacking, to the decision of allowing everything transferable from past generations

That's not necessarily true. A player could engage in 6v6 Cartridge Battles. The thing is there wouldn't be a ladder like there is in 3v3 and 4v4 - I believe you have to find someone in order to do the battle and can't do it randomly (I haven't tried that though so don't Quote me on it - just basing this more with past gens).

Mechanically differences would be in how the cartridge is more strict in time than it is on Showdown among a few other things like Sleep Clause and pre-determined bans, which even TPC does too for their formats (example - they have only allowed Blaze Gigantamax Charizard but have not allowed Solar Power Gigantamax Charizard).

 

[DrPumpkinz]

(example - they have only allowed Blaze Gigantamax Charizard but have not allowed Solar Power Gigantamax Charizard)

Unless I'm misreading you, shouldn't that mean that Solar Power G-Zard should be banned on Showdown, because it's impossible to actually fight another player with it on cart?

 

[Colonel M]

Unless I'm misreading you, shouldn't that mean that Solar Power G-Zard should be banned on Showdown, because it's impossible to actually fight another player with it on cart?

No.

It's possible to obtain, but if I recall correctly it is extremely rare (or that's what I have been told). This is for VGC. You can read more about it here:

https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-news/2020-pokemon-video-game-championships-vgc-format-rules/

 

[DialgaTheTimeLord]

I want to talk about the communications side, which is actually important, so please bear with me.

If (when) Dynamax is banned, this is probably going to be the biggest ban in Smogon history. Way more people use Smogon rules (or participate in non-Smogon officiated leagues/events that use Smogon rules as the ruleset) than you probably think. Although there is a vocal minority who vehemently oppose us, I think a much larger group is the people who have familiarity with what Smogon is but aren't knowledgeable about what our tiering policy is, how our formats work, etc., and either lurk or don't even come onto this forum, but are still affected by or interested in our decisions in some way.

Usually in the blind voting thread, the final post simply says "X people voted ban and Y people voted no ban resulting in X/(X+Y) percent ban vote which exceeds the threshold, therefore __ is banned". For this, I don't think that's enough given the magnitude. I recommend a new thread in this subforum is created titled exactly this: "Announcement: Dynamax is banned from OU - Explanation & Information". Google "dynamax banned" and look at the results. You want the official ban announcement thread to be #1 on the search results rather than people finding the other stuff that comes up, and you want people to click on it for an explanation - this is going to be a phrase that is Googled tens of thousands of times at least.

This isn't about appeasing the anti-Smogoners. It's about good PR practice. This is not "some people are bashing us so let's respond to them." This is "we recognize that we are a large institution whose influence is widespread, and we just made a groundbreaking change so let's make everything clear."

This OP has an explanation of why Dynamax is being suspected, but there are more things to cover than just that, plus you wouldn't know that a thread called "np: SS OU Suspect Process, Round 1 - Boom Boom Pow" contained Dynamax suspect/ban reasoning unless you clicked on it. I think the announcement thread should cover the following, in this order:

1. A reminder that we do not require anyone to use our rules (unless they're playing in our tournaments and stuff), we know that we are not the official Nintendo format, everyone is free to play by whatever rules they want to play by, and that Smogon's ultimate goal is to create a metagame in which player skill is as large of a factor in determining the outcome of games as reasonably possible.
   • This is important to lead off with. We know a problem is that a lot of people don't understand these things. Why not explain this right off the bat to better educate people and make it so fewer people are misinformed?
2. An explanation of the process. This was due to a suspect test, in which anyone (so long as they achieved sufficient ladder success) was able to vote. It's so it doesn't seem like this nebulus Smogon group just took a quick vote on it one day. Anyone can vote, even you! But we have to restrict it to people who have demonstrated strong metagame knowledge and skill.
   • A common thought is that we only think it's broken because we suck/don't know how to beat it. The opposite is actually true - the nature of the suspect process ensures that only players who haven proven that they're good (via impressive W/L ratio over a decently large sample of battles) are allowed to vote!
3. An explanation of why Dynamax detracts from the goal of making a more competitive metagame.
   • A lot of this can be taken from the first two posts in this thread, plus other posts that brought up good points about Choice item mechanic exploitation, long-term and overall skill minimization, etc.
   • Include why we decided to ban Dynamax as a whole, rather than just the most broken abusers, or do things such as make the Dynamax level 50% or ban Dynamax but not Gigantamax
4. A list of common counterarguments (common is important, even if they seem unreasonable. We all know that an insane number of people are going to ask "how could you ban the new major Gen 8 mechanic?". I know this isn't a good argument, but due to how common it'll be why not address it in the post? It's just like FAQs in a way). Then, for each common counterargument, an explanation of why it is insufficient.
   • The Naganadel ban thread did a good job of this
5. A list of places/formats people can go to if they want to use Dynamax

Yes, I did just write a massive post talking about how a post should be made, and you guys might've been planning on doing this already. Regardless, this is probably going to draw never-before-seen levels of traffic, and the fewer people who are misinformed or left without information, the better. Thanks.

I wasn't going to comment here at all due to me not having a Frosmoth's chance in hell of climbing ladder and pretty much being unable to come up with anything that hasn't already been said (I don't know if anyone's mentioned how much of a meme "defensive dynamax" is vs an offensive dynamax threat), but anyway I'm commening here to stress this post.

While it's absolutely, 100% true that we should not, nor should we ever let the new toy of the week or newcoming players define how Smogon works, damage control is absolutely a must. It will be talked about. I know people who hardly even know what Smogon is that still know how absolutely hilarious the Mega Rayquaza situation was, and was about their only experience with Smogon. This is the next Mega Rayquaza in terms of PR. People WILL hear about this, even outside of Smogon, so we need to be 100% clear why we are doing so. The title needs to be clear from a Google search, the points and alternative options and who we are need to be laid out flat and clear so as to not give the haters more fuel and ground.

No matter what we know to be true as a community and how much we understand the competitive environment that we ourselves built and seek to maintain, there will always be people who don't, as well as people who will want to and those who will seek information to attempt to counter it to try to prove themselves right. We need to make it accessible to both and clear enough to counter the latter. In the case of both, we've already seen a lot of the questions they would ask here in this very thread. Almost everyone with reqs has been a strong ban supporter, while a bunch of people (probably not a majority, as there are silent people like, until now, me) have been voicing against it, but almost all of them seem to lack reqs. I'm not trying to insult or offend said people, but the point is there will be a lot of people with their same thought processes and we need to make it clear to them when this gets widespread attention why it happened in the first place. Questions such as "why did we ban the major mechanic of the generation?", "why didn't they just ban the threats?", "why not limit or restrict the mechanic?", "why isn't Gigantamax as a whole allowed and not individually banned when it's limited and more predictable like Megas, and they said almost all of them are worse than their Dynamax anyway?" (I thought that one myself at one point) , etc. These questions will unavoidably come up. We, as a community, need to be prepared to answer them, and I quite like this format and title MattL came up with. I understand it's ultimately up to the moderators and council what gets posted on the main part of the forums, but I highly encounrage you all to consider this guy's idea.

 

[Jordy]

For the record, we usually write articles about things that are suspect tested. We have done this for most of SM and even ORAS if I recall correctly. This will most likely be the case with Dynamax as well, so there's no need to worry about it too much, as we will ensure that the article is of quality and clear about whatever decision was made and why.