Baton Pass in ADV Ubers

[Fc]

Approved by TonyFlygon



Since the unbanning of Ingrain + Smeargle sometime in late 2019, Baton Pass has been at its full potential (barring evasion) in ADV Ubers, and this went fairly unnoticed until recently, with Baton Pass becoming a legitimate team threat that is incredibly hard to account for. Ingrain allows some of the more reliable Pokemon against traditional Baton Pass, such as Lugia, Ho-Oh, and Skarmory, to be ineffective generally with how easy it is to speed pass and set up an Ingrain. Teams such as the one featured in this post which has a ton of replays of it in action are the most notable full pass teams, easily MU'ing most common styles with little to no actual play required aside from setting up and passing to Smeargle then winning. A lot of current players have expressed very clear distaste towards Baton Pass for the same fundamental reasons as always, as found in the tiering policy framework and other common arguments about it being uncompetitive. Even things like fast Taunt leads are unable to reliably beat BP due to it only lasting 1 turn and struggle dealing very little recoil in this generation. In the past, Ubers has sometimes left traditionally uncompetitive parts in metagames if they weren't clearly overwhelming or game changing, but Baton Pass teams in ADV are very viable and can easily just get wins on the spot with little player choice. This makes them extremely volatile in any game, with the only reason people aren't using it more likely just being on principal not wanting to win tour games with Baton Pass due to the stigma around it. I have a few examples of them succeeding in tour games from ADV Cup such as myself Vs. Fardin and myself Vs. March Fires, with it clearly just winning on lead even with luck such as multiple Ancient power boosts to try and stop it. This is the same common MU argument about Baton Pass, where nothing in the game was in the players hands, from turn 1 it had already ended.

Baton Pass as a strategy isn't just limited to full pass, however, as even quick pass has seen recent tour usage. Relying on Ninjask, these teams function extremely well by passing stats to mons that normally wouldn't be able to boost those as easily such as an immediate speed boost to Groudon, Heracross, or a speed boost to tanky Latias, among other Pokemon. This is only possible through Baton Pass, effectively adding more options to an entire team's kit that shouldn't be there, making many more Pokemon and matchups more volatile with random stat boosts being thrown into the mix. The fact that there is no team preview also means that you can also just expect full pass or expect quick pass and the other will show up, causing a game to be much harder to decipher and even attempt to outplay. Some recent tour examples include:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-535721- Heysup Vs. Noitu, Ubers MW II
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-536345- Heysup Vs. Melle2402, Ubers MW II
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-555617- Skysolo Vs. Lekstaz, ADV Cup V
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ubers-556798- Skysolo Vs. Staxi, ADV Cup V

After discussing a lot of times in both the official Ubers discord and the ADV Ubers discord with many top players of the tier, a lot of them came to the agreement that something had to be done about Baton Pass, and so this decision is something that has to be approached. The target of the ban has multiple different options, however, so tackling it the right way is important, with a few options available. Ideally we can avoid the complex bans but they can be left up for discussion just as stretch possibilities. Some aren't ideal but technically possible for the most part (stat passing ban may cause troubles for example, as mentioned here). Here are some options, but alternatives if they make sense and have merit over these can be discussed as well:

1. Ban Baton Pass - This is the simplest but highest impact ban, with this blanket ban effecting Pokemon that commonly use drypass or other forms of passing that aren't stat related such as Shedinja for momentum, and Celebi / Umbreon for Leech / Mean Look Pass respectively. This would completley solve the issue of full pass chains, but its effects would be felt outside of those and even Ninjask quick pass teams. Strategies based around Mean Look pass have seen tour usage, and killing off the viability would be unfortunate collateral, but its low usage may make this worth the loss.

2. Complex Bans - Almost every other solution would technically fall under the "complex ban" blanket. ADV Ubers and especially just ADV in general is no stranger to this with regards to Baton Pass, with OU having a ton of clauses implemented for it as well as Ubers previously having the Ingrain + Smeargle ban. Some of these complexities include:

• Reinstate the Ingrain + Smeargle Ban - This would not have an impact on quick pass teams and would even leave full pass teams intact with a slight chance of viability with Mr. Mime + Fast Roar Smeargle, but it can't be denied that Ingrain is a huge benefit to full pass teams, with this being the original ban put in place to "nerf" them. That makes it consistent with tiering in the past, but it still might not be the best option to focus on
• Targeting Individual Pokemon / Stats - The idea of banning stat passing is a very sensitive one, but one that has still been brought up. I've recently seen the argument for banning speed passing, given that full pass chains arguably can't function without speed passing at all which I think may be true, as well as this just removing Ninjask quick pass. Banning Ninjask + BP is a slightly less complex ban solution which exists and has a similar effect, given that Ninjask is a crucial part of Baton Pass as an archetype. Banning any other key mon with Baton Pass would also similarly resolve this, but Ninjask is probably the most important part of a lot of these teams and would lower their usability the most. These kinds of limits on Pokemon and number of Baton Pass users has been implemented in ADV OU, and is a very messy but technically effective solution.

These are just some options of ways this could be taken given the community finds a middle ground and can come to a conclusion on if / what is broken about BP, and a vote is more than likely to follow if that happens. These options are not set in stone, and others can be put on the table, these are just common discussion points and are the most popular responses to this problem from what top players have discussed. Discussion on the possibilities is greatly encouraged, as it'll help settle this decision and will influence BP related decisions in the future of Ubers in case other generations require attention, given how tough of a subject it is to discuss on Smogon in general.

 

[Minority]

I've been a big part of the push to get BP out of Ubers so I'll briefly discuss.

Baton Pass is a peerless move that allows a Pokemon to pass stat boosts and some other game conditions. One of, if not the primary method in which these core game elements (stat changes, Ingrain, Mean Look, etc.) are balanced is that their effects are lost upon switching. Baton Pass acts as an "exception" to this rule, and who's implications were never considered in any competitive setting. Baton Pass allows game states that are exclusive to a single Pokemon to instead be shared between all Pokemon, effectively creating a single "Pokemon" that has access to 18 different moves, and the capacity to change its typing and ability at will, so long as it meets the simple and arbitrary requirement of having Baton Pass in its movepool. The entire competitiveness of what we're doing when we play 6v6 singles is to have a 6v6 Pokemon contest, which Baton Pass is in direction violation with. All of the things we value, all the interesting choices and competitive minutiae that arrises from having six distinct Pokemon on a team is destroyed by Baton Pass. A Baton Pass team is a single Pokemon that either does or does not have the tools to win. There is no outplaying when on the defense and there is only autopilot from the offense. This is the short version of why the vast majority of competitive players do not enjoy playing against (and often with) Baton Pass.

As for action I imagine most competitive players aren't interested in targeting a very specific and arbitrary element such as "Ninjask" which not only ignores the fundamental problem stated above but will inevitably fail to fix the problem and leave us to have this discussion again in another six months. Also Mean Pass is the most uncompetitive use of BP in ADV Ubers and is the foremost exploitation of BP which we are targeting, not "collateral" to be preserved.

 

[Fc]

Posting on behalf of SuperEpicAmpharos, ADV Ubers cup V finalist and QC member

Baton Pass has always been seen as "degenerate" or "cheese". And frankly, that's because it is. If using BP wasn't frowned upon, people would use it more. If I really wanted to win my games, I would be using full BP teams at least 20% of the time. They're incredibly effective into any opponent. The counterplay for them is very thinly spread, with the best counterplay being Haze, which has little to no availability on viable Pokemon. Fast Taunt would work if passing speed wasn't the first thing any BP team made by somebody with a brain did. And that leads me to the biggest problem with Baton Pass teams: passing speed. Mean Look pass is dumb, sure, that's fair to say, but Umbreon is quite terrible as a Pokemon and is very exploitable. Baton Pass teams would not be a problem if all of the stat passers didn't have +3 Speed. The goal here should be to nuke full pass chains while retaining other elements of BP. Pokemon like Celebi, Shedinja, or Gorebyss get legitimate value out of Baton Pass that isn't cheese and there is no reason to remove them from the metagame entirely. How would you go about this? Well, personally, I'd remove speed pass if possible. If you could prevent speed from being passed, that would solve the vast majority of issues. However, this is a complex ban and a modification to the game itself, which I know a lot of people aren't immediately on board for. I would also be okay with what BW OU does to Baton Pass, which is prevent Speed + another stat from being passed. Outside of complex bans, I would not be opposed to banning Ninjask as a whole. It serves very little purpose other than for facilitating cheese, and the metagame would not lose its other Baton Pass users. Other forms of Baton Pass such as Ingrain pass or Mean Look pass I am personally not opposed to banning, but Mean Look pass especially I am okay with keeping around. The Ingrain pass unban was pretty strange to begin with, and I don't see a reason for it to stick around.

Edit: And also MMII, ADV Ubers UPL player

Please just ban Baton Pass.


I'm just going to assume everybody is on board that full pass is a problem that should be deleted/nerfed out of existence. I'm going to focus purely on why I think other uses of Baton Pass aren't worth saving and why we shouldn't bother with the headache of trying to find out the best way to nerf ONLY full pass.


To the best of my limited knowledge and memory, the comprehensive list of effective uses of Baton Pass are:

Mean Look Pass Umbreon/Smeargle

Quick Pass Ninjask

Drum Pass Smeargle

Dry(/SD) Pass Shedinja

SD/CM/Seed Pass Celebi

Swellow

Random pinch berry BP users like Gorebyss


These are all matchup fishing. Some are better at doing things when they fight the bad matchup than others.


Umbreon wants to fight some fat mu ideally. The best answer to it is having a faster Taunt like Gengar or some sort of strong offensive phazer that you can try winning 50/50s with. Even in offensive mus, Umbreon has the bulk to trap at least one thing and that one thing can mean a lot. Minority has a good example team in his team showcase called Dark Dreamer Hyper Offense. It's a little dated but still works pretty well in 2021.


Mean Look Smeargle I don't have much, if any, first hand experience with. An example team can be found here under the #trapped hidetag. Spikes on the set can be replaced with Sub/Endure to proc Salac more consistently. It's a pretty simple set, you abuse how slow most of the adv meta is to sleep something with your Spore and then you trap pass the mon they pick to die. It can be beat by phazing or priority but that's after something has already "died" to sleep so Smeargle has still got some consistent value even when it misses the mu it was fishing for.


Drum Pass Smeargle (Sub, Spore, Drum, BP @ Salac) is similar in how it works and how to beat it but just with a different end result. If you have a phazer or priority you can stop it from passing the Belly Drum but in order to do so you have force it to burn the Spore first by staying in and attacking with whatever is out. You can try switching to eat the Spore on a Pokemon you are more willing to lose but if the Smeargle Subs on that turn then you just lose the game so it isn't advised.


Ninjask Quick Pass is fishing for a no phazer mu. It can't (directly) do much if it does fight one, though, besides click HP Bug/Silver Wind on the Roar/Whirlwind turn (lol hf with Skarmory). However, the threat of the Speed Pass forces the opponent to stick to the safe line of play that you can abuse with BP scouting. If they try to get cheeky to deny that, then they play into the risk of letting you pass your Speed buff in spite of their phazer.


Shedinja is a matchup fish Pokemon. If it fights faster Pursuit, Sandstorm, Spikes that beat its Rapid Spin teammate, or an offense that doesn't care about Wonder Guard then it's basically useless. Baton Pass itself doesn't do a whole lot of super crazy things besides setting up free pivots into scary but fragile things like Deoxys-A and abusing the general scouting potential to create some really lopsided/flowchart risk/reward turns. However, besides those things, banning Baton Pass means not having to run speed creep on your Pursuit Metagross to beat Jolly Shedinja. Most players don't run that much creep because Shedinja matchups are really rare and that much creep is essentially useless in every other matchup. Shedinja can also pass Swords Dance boosts but I'm pretty sure nobody bothers with that anymore since it's not necessary/worthwhile. (basically winmore)


Celebi is a specialized niche defensive Pokemon that isn't going to pass a whole lot if the other guy/gal brings Ice Beam Latios. If you fight Dragon Claw, though, and there's Pokemon that gives Celebi the free turns then it can actually pass some shit.


Swellow does endeavor stuff with the upside of passing a pinch berry. For the most part, you can lump it with all the other random pinch berry passers as shit mons that can troll folks if they beat the (potentially nonexistent) phazer/priority user. (as well as jump through at least a few other hoops)


Are any of these guys broken? No, not at all. Are they super cheesey and underabused, absolutely. (and hopefully they stay obscure)


I want to emphasize this obscurity. As of the writing of this post, Baton Pass has not been clicked a single time in these first four weeks of UPL. It is very likely (but certainly not certain) that the move was never even loaded. This isn't ADV OU. The way people choose to play ADV Ubers almost never involves the move Baton Pass at all. The potential "collateral" only concerns a very small amount of ADV Ubers games.


I don't think there's any point in (potentially) going through 3 different variations of a Nerf Full Pass Clause until we finally get it "right". ADV Ubers does not have the attention and prestige OU formats get to afford fucking around like some of them did. Collateral or not, I think a simple, sure solution is best.

 

[byulharang]

Glad this is being brought up, fullpass is an unneeded nuisance and doesn't bring anything positive to the metagame at all. Some great points were listed above, I will touch up on what I think about baton pass. I 100% think fullpass should be banned, baton pass as a move as well. What mm2 said is true, everything that wants to baton pass outside of fullpass are all niche/mu fish. Fullpass is just the biggest offender and probably the most efficient, quickpass may have that title but I personally haven't used quickpass much, only than build with it. The previous posts cover fullpass enough so I will just leave it at that and mention I think baton pass being banned may be the best solution for all current problems and future potential problems.

Responding to SEA's post where he brought up umbreon being "quite terrible" as a reason to overlook meanpass but mentions Celebi, Shed, and Gorebyss as legitimate value to keep bp? Doesn't really make sense to me as Umbreon is just as viable as the others if not more viable if thats what you were getting at (I know VR doesn't mean everything but Umbreon is listed higher than those three which means me and the other people who did rankings would agree). Meanpass is absolutely uncompetitive to the fullest being able to punish slow mons but its not the most efficient in practice as seen most recently in Most Wanted 2 Me vs Noitu . To be completely honest me having banded Deo-A was super bad for the Umbreon as it gets to switchin for free on it everytime pressuring it out as well as me having lots of booms and an unrevealed Heracross in the back so this wasn't a good matchup for it at all. This is just an example of the matchup fish the team has to go for to have any success in practice. I cannot recall a tour game where meanpass was used in success atm but my point is if we are thinking about fullpass to get rid of all of the variants of the uncompetitive mu fish that baton pass brings.

Ingrain+bp is also not a reliable solution as the current meta doesn't really see too many phazers and you're able to spore/taunt/roar to combat possible phazers. Also I can see banning ninjask/speed not solving the issue as with innovated thinkers I believe eventually these will be adjusted to with stuff like reverting back to older bp teams. Older bp teams with Wob/Umbreon lead could reappear in some form but with speedpass being banned they would definitely be nerfed but if you get a successful meanlook trap what stops you from creating your chain and having the recipient be like a Deo-A which is outsped by none, not needing the speed boost? These are POTENTIAL problems I think should be prevented as it provides nothing good to the meta. The different baton pass uses were best said by MM2, "Are any of these guys broken? No, not at all. Are they super cheesey and underabused, absolutely." They may not be the most consistent playstyles in the tier but certainly are uncompetitive and extreme mu fish which is why I would not mind banning baton pass entirely.
(I am not an expert on policy review but I was told to make a post giving my thoughts on bp so my mistake if I said something that doesn't help the argument of banning bp, its also late and I might edit a bit in the morning)

 

[Lasen]

For a while, Baton Pass in Ubers was completely overlooked because, well, no one brought it and we were under the impression that one of its most degenerate abusers in Smeargle + Ingrain was still banned well into 2020. This when coupled with the ADV Ubers playerbase taking a more active approach in trying to play a tier by organising their very own server which was -and still is- very much alive and has served as sort of an unofficial hub where anything from competitive tours, set and team discussion, teambuilding workshops and even QC work is performed. The aforementioned discussion eventually lead to Baton Pass and we all agreed that we were not fans, and wanted it gone. But was it actually broken? Through various test games one could easily establish that the average pre-existing builds didn't take Baton Pass into consideration and anything from fullpass (also seen here) to just quickpass could pretty effortlessly deal with it if the pilot was competent. Surely, we'd try to make builds that take it into consideration in that case and try to actively beat it, right? It's not that simple. You see, trying to build with Baton Pass in mind is very difficult because of how the gen works. Taunt is a measly 2 turns and all BP chains start by passing Speed so good luck getting anywhere with the, what, 3 viable Taunt users of the tier? Haze also has atrocious spread across Pokemon and overlaps with Gengar, one of the few viable Taunt users in the tier. Surely, then, phazing is viable to some extent! Well, Roar is obviously blocked by Mr Mime who is on every full-pass team and the only two other Pokemon that can be seen running Roar are the EXTREMELY RARE Latias and Kyogre who would almost always rather want to run a different move as these are situational at best even when dealing with BP. Whirlwind on the other hand, is actually seen on defensive Lugia quite commonly. The problem lies with the fact that if you are predicted on a Lugia double, you give your opponent a big free turn where they can either a) Spore/Ingrain with Smeargle, taking the Lugia out of commission or b) quickpass into one of the better breakers that Ubers has that can very easily dent Lugia for a huge amount of its health (see: Kyogre, Latios, Deoxys-A). Teams that run Baton Pass can always be ready for the "counterplay" because they inherently have a pretty decent matchup vs. most common things and can thus focus their building into countering the few matchups that can actually be a problem for them. Any time where the match-up is decided in the builder is a sign of a metagame trend that needs to be removed.
We're not some tier with an insanely large playerbase and constant tournament presence that we can make small adjustments and wait until we strike gold by limiting the amount of BP users or banning just one element at a time like Ingrain. Just like MMII said, we gotta strike while the iron is hot and accept the tiny collateral of losing unproblematic elements like drypass Shedinja and ban Baton Pass altogether.

 

[Heysup]

While I generally think that Quick Pass is a completely viable strategy that you can't just click buttons like full pass, I agree we should ban Baton Pass to avoid any annoying complex bans. Baton Pass forces everyone into a boring defensive hole where they need to run WW Ho-oh or Lugia (which has some counter play as well) or otherwise be at the complete mercy of the RNG with respect to crits. The only complex ban I would consider is just implementing the OU Clause (it is somewhat consistent whereas the other options seem a bit arbitrary to me).

 

[Fc]

Vote Approved by TonyFlygon

With this thread dying down, we've come to the decision to suspect test Baton Pass as a whole. No loud arguments against the ban have been presented, and to avoid any unnecessary complexities we have decided to look at the move as a whole.

Voting Pool

General rule: Multi-gen formats are excluded because they do not guarantee that ADV was played.

ADV Ubers Cup (2020 - 64 Bracket | 2021 - 96 Bracket)
Criteria: Semi-Finalist+

l'habitat (2020)
byronthewellwell (2020)
hs (2020)
SoulWind (2020)

Skysolo (2021)
Safes (2021)
Alpha Rabbit (2021)
SuperEpicAmpharos (2021)
Betapf (2021)
64 Squares (2021)

Ubers Premier League VIII / Ubers Premier League IX / Most Wanted I / Most Wanted II / ADVPL I
Criteria: 4+ ADV matches played

64 Squares (UPL IX), (ADVPL I)
Heysup (UPL IX), (UPL VIII), (MW II)
0kay (UPL IX), (ADVPL I)
Triangles (UPL IX)
Aishia (UPL IX)
iry (UPL IX)
Melle2402 (UPL IX), (UPL VIII)
SuperEpicAmpharos (UPL IX)

Kushalos (UPL VIII)
hs (UPL VIII)
The Kyle (UPL VIII)

Noitu (MW II)

Finchinator (ADVPL I)
Mr.378 (ADVPL I)
steelskitty (ADVPL I)
Inspirited (ADVPL I)
Exiline (ADVPL I)
Ismakhil (ADVPL I)
Lasen (ADVPL I)

Ubers Live I (2019)
Criteria: ADV Winners

Pohjis
Exiline

Ubers Live II (2020)
Criteria: ADV Winners

Pohjis
BKC

If you have voting requirements as per the above list, you must forum DM me your vote in this format:

Baton Pass Clause: Enable
Baton Pass Clause: Do Not Enable

Baton Pass Clause will be enabled if I receive at least 60% of the votes, so 17 votes for it. The voting deadline is Thursday, August 5th @ 11:59 PM GMT-4. The vote is TC eligible and may be concluded earlier if we pass the limit before the deadline.

If there are any issues with the voting pool PLEASE DM me so that I can get anything sorted out as fast as possible.

 

[64 Squares]

Um, I'm not sure why this vote is taking place. I'll make this rather short as it's important that I get this out before the vote progresses more, but I can elaborate more on why I believe a more complex ban is a better option in the future.

The inactivity of this thread suggests to me that 1. people did not see this at all (or forgot about it altogether) and 2. people do not really think baton pass should be banned, and combined with the thread inactivity didn't see the need to make the post, because they did not think a vote would take place. (I personally fit into this second category).

Looking at who posted, the turnout is abysmal and only 2 people are even qualified for the vote (SEA and Heysup). Both of them suggested that they would prefer looking into a complex ban as opposed to an outright ban.

While you might say, that based on what I just said, the votes are going to favor do not enable and bp will be allowed to stay in ADV ubers. However, the problem here is how the community views fullpass. People might make their votes with the intention of killing off that archetype, as they might think that killing off fullpass is more important that saving the more fair uses of bp. Without knowing if there would be a complex ban vote in the future, players might vote to ban bp even if its not their ideal choice. Most of these players would support a more complex ban killing fullpass, but saving bp on other mons, which is why this vote format is clearly inferior.

Overall, I'm quite disappointed with how Fc and to a lesser extent TonyFlygon have handled this vote, and I recommend that the vote be canceled immediately. There is no reason this vote should be rushed, there is no big ADV tournament coming up, and its clear that the community does not believe this is a super pressing issue with how low the activity of this thread has been. We need to make sure we are voting on what the playing community wants to vote on, and it's clear to me that the community would prefer a complex ban vote as opposed to this current vote.

 

[keys]

Don't really have the time to write much right now but I fully agree with 64 Squares, I didn't originally make a post because I didn't feel like BP should be banned entirely and didn't really think the minimal actvitity from this thread warranted me going into it (plus I honestly just ended up forgetting about the thread) but now all of a sudden we get blindsided by a test out of nowhere and as someone who barely missed out on reqs (I made quarterfinals of ADV Ubers Cup last year and won both of my Classic playoff games in ADV in the only ADV Ubers tournament I joined) I feel like this vote came out of nowhere for a tier that has been largely the same for over a decade (there was the whole smeargle ingrain situation but that's a very marginal and largely irrelevant change while BP as a move is much more relevant).

There have been very few posts as 64 has laid out and only 3 of the qualified voters even voiced their opinions at all and it doesn't seem like there's a consensus for the route this test should go in (if at all), so why are we voting already instead of trying to iron out the best possible verbiage for a BP-based test (if it has to be tested in the first place)? There's no rush whatsoever since Classic + UPL literally just ended so we really won't have a major ADV tour until potentially World Cup (oldgens not even confirmed in that format) or Most Wanted (is it even happening this year?) months down the road.

I personally think the collateral of losing out mons like Umbreon, Celebi, etc which are somewhat important yet harmless BP users isn't necessarily worth it and would be interested in a complex solution rather than rushing into a full BP test right now (especially since we truly do not know which route our community even prefers from the current turnout). I'd ask that you guys reconsider this test and gauge where people are at before rushing into voting on something that doesn't even seem to be what people want (full BP blanket ban), because this is honestly disappointing.

Please delay the vote asap and re-assess the options.

 

[Fc]

After discussing more with TonyFlygon and in the Ubers discord, this vote will be temporarily postponed. If people object to the process there's no need to hurry things for a 20 year old tier, so we'll take it slow to make sure things go right. For those who wanted it, this is a formal heads up that a vote will be happening in the near future, and now's the time to share your thoughts. Requesting PR access is now possible through this new method if you don't have access already, so it's open to anyone with thoughts on this. Apologies to those who already gave their thoughts and votes since this is unexpected, but if it's what the community wants it's for the best.

 

[Exiline]

Just ban Stat boost + baton pass (including speed boost), problem solved.

 

[Minority]

Just ban Stat boost + baton pass (including speed boost), problem solved.

So if a Pokemon has been Intimidated, does that mean it can no longer click Baton Pass?

 

[Exiline]

So if a Pokemon has been Intimidated, does that mean it can no longer click Baton Pass?

Obviously note if that's the only stat change affecting it, please refrain yourself from trolling in a policy thread, smogon moderators should hold a minimum standard.

 

[Minority]

Obviously note if that's the only stat change affecting it, please refrain yourself from trolling in a policy thread, smogon moderators should hold a minimum standard.

There is nothing "trolling" about my post, it's a serious question that your one-liner doesn't begin to address. The irony is palpable right now.

It also doesn't address if Ingrain or Mean Look are being counted as "boosts", and if they aren't, the problem isn't fixed now is it.

 

[Exiline]

There is nothing "trolling" about my post, it's a serious question that your one-liner doesn't begin to address. The irony is palpable right now.

It also doesn't address if Ingrain or Mean Look are being counted as "boosts", and if they aren't, the problem isn't fixed now is it.

It should be pretty clear for anyone playing this game that ingrain and mean look aren't stat boost

 

[Inspirited]

Here's a bigger evaluation of what happens with if Baton Pass can't be used when stat boosts are present:

- Quickpass goes away completely and so does Ninjask as a whole

- We lose SD pass Celebi

- BP chains go away (the ultimate goal of this)

- Swagger is able to block BP users


I like this more than anything else proposed because it ensures full BP goes away, doesn't ban any Pokemon species really, removes some MU BS you could pull through quick pass or SD pass, and doesn't harm the core of what makes Pokemon like Celebi and Umbreon (Dodrio and Shedinja too if you really want to scrape the bottom of the barrel) viable. SD Celebi was always a pretty big MU gamble as are the more niche quickpass styles like Gorebyss or Swellow (I'll let the players who use these frequently comment more on them) so I personally am not super sad to see them go either. Overall this is probably the best way to go in terms of just how much guaranteed good it does, the limited collateral damage, and its relative simplicity as far as complex bans go.

The Swagger problem is rather stupid but really not that big of a deal. IMO there are 3 options for dealing with in in that we leave it alone, look at removing the silly move entirely, or exclude it from the clause somehow (this would get rather complicated). It shouldn't interact with Baton Pass all that often because moveslots in this tier are valuable if your goal is to win consistently. I do think we should look into removing it entirely and that would solve this problem but that is a topic for another time and thread.

tl;dr: I am in favor of stat boost + BP restriction

 

[Fc]

I haven't formally given my own opinion on this, so I figured now I might as well given we have the time. My preferred solution would be to ban Baton Pass as a move. As highlighted in this other PR post, implementing a full stat passing ban comes with a ton of complications that may not even be able to be executed in an ideal way on the sim. That is for gen 8, but a lot of the same points still apply to ADV. I think a complex ban is possible, but I don't think banning BP + stat passing is the way to go, and as Minority mentioned, where do we draw the line with what can and should be passable? If anything, I'd prefer to ban either Ninjask or just limit the number of BP users similar to ADV OU except probably to like 1 user if possible, but I think with how messy things can get just outright banning the move is the best outcome here. I've won many games where I don't feel like I even had to play the game, I just got a mu and clicked for 50 turns using BP. The main target of this ban is definitely full pass imo, but I don't think losing other niche BP users that can also heavily shift MU's in a non preview gen is a big drawback here. Quick Passing does exist and isn't as bad for the meta as full pass, but I don't think it should stay around either just given the volatility of BP as a move and the complications when agreeing on possible complex bans that target what we want. Complex bans turn the move into a moldable state made of our opinions, which isn't how it should work if we want to stay as in game accurate as possible. This is just the way I see it, and I think that the way Baton Pass is tiered in current Ubers where the move is either legal or not is the best way to approach it.

 

[MMII]

Another important factor to consider when viewing the low participation in this thread is the fact that this is a thread in a limited access forum about a niche metagame. There's not much forums engagement from the ADV Ubers community in general, in the first place. Most discussion for the metagame happens on discord or in private conversations.


I think delaying this vote is a good idea. What's the plan here though, exactly? There's been zero framework laid out for how any of this is going to take place and no details for how long this vote is being delayed for. What criteria is going to qualify as having waited enough? This thread has already been here for an entire month. Having at least a timeline would be nice.


What's going to be the complex ban people are going to vote on and how will it be chosen? In this thread, three different people have mentioned four possible complex bans. Two of them are sim mods (I imagine speed pass will probably be implemented as a teambuilder ban, though) and the other two are based on OU metagames which themselves went through various editions before arriving on their current versions. (and who knows how long they will last there) Attempts to complex ban BP throughout Smogon have been controversial and messy. None of the OU metagames share the same complex ban (which is only two of them). It doesn't seem reasonable to expect ADV Ubers to figure out the solution that has eluded far larger playerbases. There's no tiering hierarchy in place for ADV Ubers (thank god) and deciding what complex ban to vote on is a whole vote in itself. The alternative would severely compromise the idea that the BP vote would be anything close to resembling something democratic.


If radical changes to the voting process are on the table then I would love to rant about why I hate how Smogon handles old gen voting. The short of it, though, is that it's very anti-democratic and makes an already small voting pool even smaller. Mr.378 should absolutely be on whatever list of voters is decided but I do want to point out that he qualifies on the list posted here by winning exactly zero games of ADV Ubers.


I think polling at least the ADV Ubers discord would be a good start to get a glimpse at what folks want to do with this vote. It's pretty clear that this thread isn't representative of the wider community and having some sort of actual data would help. I'm obviously against complex bans, personally, but far more than that I just want to make sure the community is happy with what's decided, be it a complex ban or not.

was in the initial post but obviously too late now

Related, to the discussion immediately above; this fairly recent thread touches on the issues of implementing a dry pass complex ban. There are also a LOT of other threads treading the subject of BP and complex bans in a variety of metagames, too many for me to link here.

 

[64 Squares]

Hello, I'm reposting to clarify a few things.

The state of BP outside Fullpass
The issue of BP in ADV Ubers reminds me of the issue brought up during pre-Marshadow SM Ubers in Mega-Gengar + Hypnosis.

1. Was Mega-Gengar + Hypnosis uncompetitive? Yes. However, is Mega-Gengar minus Hypnosis uncompetitive? No; in fact, Mega-Gengar is a meaningful element of both ORAS and USM Ubers.


2. Is Ingrain + BP uncompetitive in ADV Ubers? Given that Ingrain + BP is at the heart of Fullpass, and my understanding of the arguments which say that Fullpass is uncompetitive, I'll concede a conditional yes to this.


3. Is BP in the absence of Fullpass uncompetitive in ADV Ubers? Not only is the answer no, the various uses of BP outside of Fullpass add depth to ADV Ubers. Therefore BP (outside Fullpass) is a fundamentally competitive element of ADV Ubers, the direct opposite of "uncompetitive."


Concrete examples of the how BP adds depth to the metagame

1. Mean-pass Umbreon
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ubers-1389547188-rvq593ft1h7ljfg8mjbiyh7odwg3ejvpw
Here, Umbreon demonstrates its viability with Mean-pass, in large part due to the opponent bringing a suboptimal build. In fact, Deoxys-A > Aerodactyl would have put the Umbreon user at a disadvantage; but with this not being the case, Umbreon shows it has a healthy effect upon the metagame by punishing suboptimal builds like offense with Aerodactyl > Deoxys-A. This is similar to the effect that Mega-Gengar has upon the metagame, as it punishes builds with Arceus-Fairy as a win condition while lacking countermeasures to it like Sticky Web or Pursuit Marshadow.

2. Quick-pass Shedinja
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ubers-1389542006-csj7hm57oj44nnvb5ge09rjq5bfbkorpw
Here, Shedinja demonstrates its viability as a check to two large threats in Kyogre and Latias. It evades Metagross’ Pursuit thanks to the essential move in BP. Shedinja eventually falls to Shadow Ball Snorlax.

Additional uses: SD/Sub-pass Celebi, Liechi Ninjask, Starf-pass Swellow, Scout-pass Dodrio. These are less viable uses of BP as compared to the first two use cases, but nonetheless are meaningful tools to play with.

Perhaps the most contentious of the bunch is Liechi Ninjask. However, this Pokémon is balanced due to several factors: (1) the opponent can limit the options for the receiver e.g. a Boom user forces a pass to a Steel, Ice Beam user prevents a pass to Groudon etc. (2) it fails immediately against any phazer (3) teambuilding-wise Ninjask requires a full slot commitment at the cost of 0 defensive utility. Thus a loss to Liechi Ninjask implies a simultaneous failure to (1) have a Boom user for an emergency, (2) have a phazer for an emergency, and (3) lose a game 6-5 in terms of defensive resources; all combined at the same time.


Which path forward is best?
By banning Ingrain + BP, we invalidate Fullpass, and as a tiering decision would simply bring us back to the status quo of one year prior. Banning Ingrain + BP invalidates Fullpass because it allows for balance and stall to beat it naturally via phazing which is already widespread, thus decreasing the spread of match-ups for which Fullpass is favored to the point of unviability. More importantly, we preserve the above demonstrated use cases of BP for which ADV Ubers would be less vibrant in their absence.

On the other hand, banning BP entirely would result in this metagame losing (1) a check to Latios and CB Deoxys-A with an interesting yet balanced strategy in Mean-pass Umbreon and (2) a check to Kyogre, Latios, and Petaya Deoxys-A in Quick-pass Shedinja. The viability of the former is ruined without Mean-pass, as is the latter which requires Quick-pass for Pursuit evasion. Given the fact that Kyogre, Latios, and Deoxys-A are Pokémon with few checks to begin with, banning even more Pokémon which check them is a seriously bad tiering decision, comparable to banning Mega-Gengar entirely during SM instead of a complex ban of Mega-Gengar + Hypnosis.

Ultimately, the arguments in favor of outright banning BP grossly neglect both the significant collateral damage and unforeseen consequences upon the metagame, and come from people who are proven to lack understanding of ADV Ubers, as evidenced by their consistently poor (if not nonexistent) showings in tours. It is my sincere hope that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater at this fork in the road for a metagame beloved by myself and many others for its dynamic depth of interesting strategies.

tldr: Kyogre, Latios, and Deoxys-A are powerful threats in the metagame for which there exist few countermeasures. Banning BP would render Umbreon and Shedinja useless, resulting in the first three Pokémon becoming even more over-powered. This is net unhealthy for the ADV Ubers metagame, so there are real demerits to banning BP entirely. The more sensible approach towards the problem posed by Fullpass is a complex ban of Ingrain + BP.

 

[Lasen]

proxyposting on behalf of Ajencis who runs the (unofficial) ADV Ubers discord:

I'm not really that good a player; take my opinion with a grain of salt. My impression is that there is some consensus that something should be done about BP; however, only a small amount of the playerbase has really been consulted. I would like to in some way try to poll the larger playerbase. Nevertheless, the top players that have commented and those to whom I've spoken seem more-or-less unanimous that some ban should occur. To me, banning BP wholesale is a weaker solution. Although the auxiliary users of BP aren't that significant, they do provide some diversity to the tier; I personally think that Shedinja is somewhat underused. Nevertheless, this isn't a bad solution per se; just in my opinion not the best.
My preferred solution would be to complex ban BP+stat boosts in the teambuilder. It seems clear that a sim mod is more-or-less out of the question, but I am not convinced from the post that FC linked that a teambuilder restriction is. The post in question deals with a gen 8 proposition, and this means that not only are there much fewer rules elements to restrict but also that much fewer of those rules elements have strange implications. In gen3, the only bans needed beyond edge cases like Metal Claw would be Speed Boost, pinch berries, and moves that exclusively boost stats; and the edge cases would likely not really need to be banned anyways. It seems more reasonable to consider these either one complex ban (BP + stat-boosting abilities, berries, and moves) or three very closely related bans. I generally think that the common arguments against complex bans are not too relevant here. The risk of creating a very intricate ruleset with a bunch of complex bans is low, as we are unlikely to make many future modifications to this tier. Accessibility to new players is less of a concern, as new players are probably not too likely to start their adv ubers teambuilding journey with baton pass, and because I'd rather have a good meta than an easy-to-learn one. Slippery slope arguments - 'anything is balanced if it is restricted enough' - are not compelling to me because we are banning based on uncompetitiveness rather than based on power.

 

[Fc]

Hi, sorry for the silence from myself for a bit, we were trying to work out what would be the best and simplest solution to our problem while providing multiple options, and with a relative openness to complex bans in lower tier old gens, the council were able to find a solution. In a similar vein to SS tiers, we've created a community survey to gauge the opinion on what should be done towards Baton Pass. The options for complex bans aren't all the ones that have been brought up in the past, but the council believes these to be fairly realistic and simple solutions that tackle different problems. This will be open for around a week, and we'll gauge the correct course of action after that.

With that in mind:
The first ADV Ubers Community Survey - Link

Tagging users who were both a part of the initial voting pool and who have posted / been proxy posted for in the thread:

Tags

l'habitat byronthewellwell hs SoulWind The Strap Safes Alpha Rabbit SuperEpicAmpharos Betapf 64 Squares Heysup 0kay Triangles Aishia iry Melle2402 Kushalos The Kyle Noitu Finchinator Mr.378 steelskitty Inspirited Exiline Ismakhil Lasen Pohjis BKC Minority keys Ajencis MMII Holy Ghost

(Apologies for both having to tag a second time in this thread and if I missed anyone)

 

[MMII]

The options for complex bans aren't all the ones that have been brought up in the past, but the council believes these to be fairly realistic and simple solutions that tackle different problems.

Is it possible to elaborate on this, please?

 

[Fc]

Hi, apologies for the delay, got a little caught up with things and pushed this off a little too long, but right before pentathalon starts is a good place to finalize this. The survey results were closed after just over a week of submissions, and this was the result

Results

By a narrow margin, banning Baton Pass as a whole has won out the vote. This was the original plan and out of those who submitted a response as well as those on the tiering council who didn't get a chance to, this was the preferred outcome. Over 1/3 of the responses came from players in multiple team tours which was great, both more mid, high, and top level players were all here for participation in the survey. A blind voting thread will be up soon, so stay tuned, and thanks again for the patience with this ban and contributing to the discussion / survey! (edit: discuss :o ideally a solution soon)

Is it possible to elaborate on this, please?

Basically we just looked at a lot of options presented in this thread, on discord, and even from other bans (such as the ingrain smeargle one from before) and chose the most simple as well as giving multiple options to deal with the problem like just hitting Smeargle, just hitting Ninjask, hitting full pass chains, or just removing the move outright. Fitting all 100 different opinions on what should and shouldn't be banned just wasn't possible and these felt like the best to include. If you have any further questions I'm always open to answering on discord or here if the thread's open, but I hope that covers everything

 

[64 Squares]

61% disagree with full BP ban, 39% agree with full BP ban. yet the 39% vote wins?

We should try to figure out a complex ban people agree on instead of going for the full vote. We're risking losing BP altogether when a majority of voters prefer a complex ban.

We should have a discussion, and then have a follow up poll where people can vote on their preferred complex ban.

 

[MMII]

Basically we just looked at a lot of options presented in this thread, on discord, and even from other bans (such as the ingrain smeargle one from before) and chose the most simple as well as giving multiple options to deal with the problem like just hitting Smeargle, just hitting Ninjask, hitting full pass chains, or just removing the move outright. Fitting all 100 different opinions on what should and shouldn't be banned just wasn't possible and these felt like the best to include. If you have any further questions I'm always open to answering on discord or here if the thread's open, but I hope that covers everything

My issue with this is that there's essentially a pre-vote exclusively among "we". (I assume the ubers council?) If the goal is to arrive at the conclusion that best satisfies the general adv ubers community, then I think doing this only hurts. I understand the need to trim options before the official voting process, but polls are not binding. There's solid participation in this poll as opposed to this thread so I believe there's a viable potential to get real data from them.

I think one issue with this poll and the discussion in general is that we aren't acknowledging the flexibility of opinions. By forcing folks to pick one option out of many, we polarize the data into a bunch of conflicting groups when I'm willing to bet most folks would find multiple options acceptable.

I would be interested in seeing a poll that lists every suggested option by any user with participants being able to choose between "favor" "accept" "dislike". Smarter folks could surely come up with a better way to poll for data but my goal would be to see what group of options most folks would be happy with before furthering narrowing down the choice between the best out of those.

As it stands, the 4 possibilities proposed in this poll may have a supermajority that is upset with the outcome. It seems impossible to me to draw any real conclusions beyond the data being insufficient.