Sup, I had a longer and more detailed post but smogon deleted the entire draft because I had the audacity to open Snapchat in another tab so here's the abbreviated version of why we shouldn't ban booster energy and an extremely abbreviated version of why we should suspect chi yu.
Booster Energy:
First things first, general tiering policy is that we ban mons rather than individual elements like abilities or items. This is for pretty obvious reasons, it's simpler and has way less collateral damage. Even though custap played a big role in pushing lax over the edge in swsh 1v1, banning custap would place an unnecessary restriction on a lot of mons so we banned lax. This doesn't mean we never ban items, it just means we hold item bans to a significantly higher burden of proof. Some good examples that I'm not gonna go into detail on are brightpowders bans across many tiers and the light clay bans in multiple lower tiers
Now the way I see it, there's not much compelling evidence that booster is a problem. It's clearly not an issue on every user (see iron jugulis) or even the majority. Theres nothing inherently game breaking about it. I also haven't seen much to suggest that booster is the sole element that tips it's problematic users over the edge. One reason for this is that there is absolutely no consensus on which of these mons are actually broken. The main 3 that I've seen suggested are Iron Valiant, Iron Bundle and Flutter-Mane but I've seen opinions from people that suggest that any 2 of these are broken but the other is fine. Now I'll discuss each of these in a moment but the fact that there's no agreement on what booster mons are even a problem makes justifying a booster ban incredibly difficult; how can we say the item is broken when we don't even agree on what it's breaking? I would really like to see some discussion on this point to give council a clearer picture of what mons people think are problems, as well as more opinions on booster as a whole.
The other mon I see mentioned in these convos is Iron Hands who's worth pointing out as a mon who mainly uses booster in Atk. Now this is a point I've made many times on cord but I really need to emphasise it here:
any mon that would be broken by atk/spatk boost would be broken even if booster gets banned because life orb does effectively the same thing. For example there would be no point in banning Kings Rock if we left Razor Fang legal because they achieve the same thing it's just common sense. Same principle applies here.
As such, any mon that's primarily using booster energy for atk/spatk cannot be used to justify a booster ban because they will still be a problem even if booster goes. As such the main effect to focus on here is the no downside speed boost, which cannot be replicated by an other item because scarf doesn't allow for protect and other strong 2v2 options. The defense boosts are worth noting but nobody has argued that any defense boosters are problems so I'm going to leave those by the wayside. I guess you could also argue that life orb recoil really is just that big of a factor but you're gonna need some really convincing calcs for that.
What this means is that anyone looking to make a pro ban argument has to convincingly show that valiant, bundle and flutter are broken because of the speed boost. Now to be fair, both bundle and valiant have encore, which has incredible synergy with speed booster. Flutter doesn't have encore but going faster without choice lock is really nice for a mon with such a potent stab combo. Even so, assuming that these mons are broken (which hasn't been shown at all but hey), what important mus does a booster ban actually change and would that balance these mons? Looking through vr the main things booster lets these fellas outspeed are: scarf chi yu (which may be leaving the tier soon), chien pao and each other which is irrelevant because a booster ban on all 3 wouldn't change their mu chart vs each other. Is this really enough to say that these mons would be balanced without this item? Like look at valiant, this fucker is insanely strong, has a ridiculous typing and has an insanely fast encore. If you consider this mon broken, fair enough, but do you really believe that it'll be balanced just through booster removal? If you do you've got some work to do to prove that I gotta say.
This is really the crux of it.
Anyone who is pro-ban on booster has to convincingly show that
A) these mons are in fact broken,
B) that they are broken specifically because of the unique aspects of booster i.e. the speed boost,
C) that they would be balanced just by banning booster and
D) that it is worth restricting this item on all its other users just to keep these mons in the tier.
You might think this is a lot and you would be right. But ultimately, the default action is no action, doing any ban requires justification and this is just what you have to show to convincingly prove that this item has to go. If you can't justify action you shouldn't take action and I still haven't seen any good justifications given.
Booster Energy is a more clear cut case imo. The item provides a choice scarf or a life orb without the negatives of each. Paradox mons already dominate the tier with their incredible stat lines and amazing movepools, booster energy makes them broken. Banning the item has no negative reprecussions, the better paradox mons will continue to be good using Lorb, scarf or any of the other items available to all mons. This ban only serves to bring them more in line with the rest of the tier and diversify the builder.
I don't want to pick on you specifically but these are the kind of posts that do nothing to actually justify action, there's nothing in here about what booster mons are broken or how specifically a booster ban would serve to balance them. Contrary to what you say here, the ban would in fact have negative reprecussions because it restricts the item on every other user. The idea that the good paradox mons would continue to be good without booster is in fact, an argument against banning booster as detailed in the above paragraph.
I also want to quickly point out the issues with the last line that I've highlighted. We are not obligated to bring mons in line with the rest of the tier. We ban things with the goal of making the tier healthier not in service of some theoretical ideal power level. Some mons are gonna be better than others because of specific tools they have and that's just how it is. Even in a hypothetical meta where the top 5 mons in the tier all used booster, if they were all healthy and the tier was stable and diverse we wouldn't ban booster. You could use this same idea to justify insane things, like banning fake out to bring the fake out users more into line with the rest of the tier, because fake out is just such a good tool, or follow me or whatever. We work with the power level we have, we don't clip the wings of some mons so others can keep up.
Chi Yu
I don't have the energy to go into extensive detail here lol, I'll let more invested people do that. This guy has a limited pool of answers, and ridiculous synergy with other high/top tiers that can take advantage of those answers. It's got flaws and it's clearly not quick ban worthy but I think a suspect is pretty justified.
Wrote this while sick so if you find any mistakes, or grammar or syntax issues that annoy you, don't tell me I don't care.
TL DR: Nope, go read it
