Gen 3 ADV Baton Pass v184

[Star]

This is just a companion thread to https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/adv-baton-pass-v184.3732533/

Please post in the linked thread if you have Policy Review access, but if you don’t you could either follow the steps in that forum to request access to post, or just post here.

 

[Shock3600]

#Free wider discussion of tiering action in regards to ninjask

 

[Redless]

THE PEOPLE want a conservative, minimal, simple, no-collateral Ninjask ban on the table.

 

[Funkybeangamer]

THE PEOPLE want a conservative, minimal, simple, no-collateral Ninjask ban on the table.

Even as someone pro speedpass ban, it's a little dishonest not to include jask (more accurately speed boost ability) ban.

 

[Croconaw Guy]

The title of this thread is a massive indictment on how this has been handled so far. Baton Pass is obviously broken, and it’s so broken that multiple attempts to constrain it — from much better players than me — have failed…again, and again, and AGAIN. If the community doesn’t want to ban it to preserve as much of the non-cheese metagame as possible, fine, but this needs to be the last BP thread for ADV OU, because, respectfully: enough of this shit. This should be the last chance to preserve “legitimate” BP.

I think the only half-measure with a chance to do that is to ban StatPass. Ban only SpeedPass and we’ll be right back here a year from now. The same is true of sentiments above proposing a Ninjask ban, which is just repeating the same mistake we've made a million times across multiple generations. The issue is never the abuser, or the supporter, or the move. It's always the core function of the move itself. Keep treating the symptoms and not the disease and you'll keep getting threads like this one. (For that reason I'd just ban BP outright, but I assume that option is dead on arrival for most of the ADV community, so I don't see any use in arguing for it.)

Banning StatPass still preserves DryPass, which is clearly not broken, and I personally think collateral like Celebi passing CM to be acceptable. Honestly, I'd sooner have a BP clause that only lets Zapdos, Celebi, and Jolteon use the move, which is at least intellectually honest in the compromise it's making, than yet another flaccid attempt to translate "we to preserve BP Zapdos, Celebi, and Jolteon while preventing the sadistic weirdos who make Ninjask teams from ruining the ladder" into a coherent restriction.

 

[5imian]

Legitimately just ban Ninjask/Speed Pass and Coinflip moves, this whole idea of "we said last time we'd do X and even though Y is clearly the problem we must stick to X" is frankly stupid. We know the problem at this point is jask- and then ban the moves that literally only exist to coinflip free subs or cheese a last mon in Accuracy lowering moves or Swagger.

When over and over again I read people deciding their hill to die on is sand attack of all things it's fucking exhausting. It's part of why I left ADVcom, I was sick of having the argument.

I don't have faith that this issue will be solved in a way that won't irrevocably fuck up the tier. I'll be pleasantly surprised if proven wrong.

 

[Jimothy Cool]

I understand the frustration of constantly having to revisit BP, but I don't think we should make such extreme decisions here. I don't think this needs to be the absolute final call on BP.

Bans on Stat pass / BP as a whole are out of the question IMO. These are important options for the tier that aren't even causing any huge issues.

If a straight up Speedpass banned happened I wouldn't be too upset, but it'd be a shame to lose valid strategies as collateral damage (Salac Pass, DD Pass Smeargle etc)

I know this wasn't an option but I'd say that a ban on Speed Boost / Ninjask is a good place to start. If another OP Agil Pass Zapdos chain ends up emerging we can ban Speed pass as a whole and say that was the true problem all along.

 

[Shitrock enjoyer]

The title of this thread is a massive indictment on how this has been handled so far. Baton Pass is obviously broken, and it’s so broken that multiple attempts to constrain it — from much better players than me — have failed…again, and again, and AGAIN. If the community doesn’t want to ban it to preserve as much of the non-cheese metagame as possible, fine, but this needs to be the last BP thread for ADV OU, because, respectfully: enough of this shit. This should be the last chance to preserve “legitimate” BP.

I think the only half-measure with a chance to do that is to ban StatPass. Ban only SpeedPass and we’ll be right back here a year from now. The same is true of sentiments above proposing a Ninjask ban, which is just repeating the same mistake we've made a million times across multiple generations. The issue is never the abuser, or the supporter, or the move. It's always the core function of the move itself. Keep treating the symptoms and not the disease and you'll keep getting threads like this one. (For that reason I'd just ban BP outright, but I assume that option is dead on arrival for most of the ADV community, so I don't see any use in arguing for it.)

Banning StatPass still preserves DryPass, which is clearly not broken, and I personally think collateral like Celebi passing CM to be acceptable. Honestly, I'd sooner have a BP clause that only lets Zapdos, Celebi, and Jolteon use the move, which is at least intellectually honest in the compromise it's making, than yet another flaccid attempt to translate "we to preserve BP Zapdos, Celebi, and Jolteon while preventing the sadistic weirdos who make Ninjask teams from ruining the ladder" into a coherent restriction.

If u think banning statpass is the solution, post elo.
Ill make this as short as it needs to be, if we ban speedpass alongside the current clause, there are literal no issues whatsoever, if u think cm/sd pass cele is broken u have to play more genuinely, the tier has a lot of measures to deal with those two, not to mention nobody in the community would actually support a statpass ban from what i know and talked to, speedpass + the current ruleset and we wont have any more issues, it has been evident since forever that the problem was speedpass on its whole, although i do have to agree that if we ban speedpass but free multi pass (aka removing the one boost pass clause) we would probably need to revisit, but again, a speedpass w the current ruleset simply solves the issue. Also the title is coercive and makes it seem more big of a problem than it actually is, just to clarify, the last time BP got changed was 19 months ago (when they fixed an oversight aka blockpass smeargle) and practically its actually 25 months ago when a actual super relevant ruleset was in place, the only one boost passer clause, anyway removing statpass kills diversity in the tier for very unecessary reasons when its not really difficult to deal with sdpass or cmpass teams, we can absolutely preserve them and still get rid of the core issue

 

[mkizzy]

i dont understand why a majority of discussion around this topic is about ninjask but none of the actual proposed options include just dealing with ninjask (or speed boost)

also its really common sense to me to ditch sand attack and flash

 

[Hclat]

I'm not allowed to type in the real thread, but I'm really not a fan of it so I'll post here.

First off, the tone in the OP really rubs me the wrong way. “v184” and “a ludicrous amount of times” as though the ADVOU council is tirelessly maintaining the tier despite an incessantly naggy community. This is a bad look.

The last thread for baton pass changes in ADV was started in November 2021. That thread stretches to May 2022, where the council had to make follow-up bans because they silently reversed their policies on Soundproof and BP Smeargle as part of the new ruleset. That was 19 months ago.

I brought sand attack + swagger ninjask to SPL14 week 3, where I lost to Mcmeghan from a position with very high win%. My structure effectively remains the standard for BP now. People have experimented with leech seed partners and used toxic in modified rulesets (Mushi League, ADV Revival), but the outline is the same. You knew about this 10 months ago.

My point is the ADVOU council’s approach to bp tiering makes clear that they’re completely disengaged from the ADVOU playerbase. Three of the four members barely touch the tier aside from 0-2ing out of their legacy spots in Callous Invite. Marcop didn’t even bother this year. It feels like there's no intent in aiding the tier, just sweeping something ugly under the rug in time for SPL. It’s lazy and inept.

I hope that some more engaged ADV players will volunteer for these spots on the council. I think this would lead to more thoughtful policy, and I imagine those three would eagerly drop this burden if given the chance.

With regard to ADV baton pass policy, I (and I believe a big share of the playerbase) would prefer banning baton pass ninjask/speedboost/etc, which isn’t included in the options. Because of this, I propose we change nothing and make a better thread.

 

[Gilbert arenas]

Yeah, stepping down. Didn't realize this was a prevailing issue. Apologies in whatever role I played in stagnating this. Hope other council members follow suit and give their spot to more active players.

 

[Heysup]

To me this just looks like the perpetuation of a sunk cost fallacy.

Not that I'm a truly acting ADV OU mainer, but being an avid SD Celebi BP user since 2008, my question is how much time has been wasted and how much time do people want to spend on saving "legitimate BP", whatever that is? Seems simpler to just ban BP. Of course it would have been more convenient if we did that like 10 years ago but it really seems like no matter the tweaks there are constant issues.

 

[Croconaw Guy]

If u think banning statpass is the solution, post elo.
Ill make this as short as it needs to be, if we ban speedpass alongside the current clause, there are literal no issues whatsoever, if u think cm/sd pass cele is broken u have to play more genuinely, the tier has a lot of measures to deal with those two, not to mention nobody in the community would actually support a statpass ban from what i know and talked to, speedpass + the current ruleset and we wont have any more issues, it has been evident since forever that the problem was speedpass on its whole, although i do have to agree that if we ban speedpass but free multi pass (aka removing the one boost pass clause) we would probably need to revisit, but again, a speedpass w the current ruleset simply solves the issue. Also the title is coercive and makes it seem more big of a problem than it actually is, just to clarify, the last time BP got changed was 19 months ago (when they fixed an oversight aka blockpass smeargle) and practically its actually 25 months ago when a actual super relevant ruleset was in place, the only one boost passer clause, anyway removing statpass kills diversity in the tier for very unecessary reasons when its not really difficult to deal with sdpass or cmpass teams, we can absolutely preserve them and still get rid of the core issue

StatPass Celebi isn't broken, which is why I called it collateral. We all know the actual target. It's just really, really hard to make a BP clause that both preserves the diversifying benefits of the move and prohibits its many, many abuses. Trying to do so is a fool's errand. But if we do try, which seems like the only outcome given the community's opposition to banning the move, the option of "ban SpeedPass -- but unban chains" will make the problem worse, not better. If banning SpeedPass while maintaining current restrictions was on the table (and maybe w/ Hclat's post it will be), I'd support it, but forgive me or anyone else for being skeptical that even that would finally be the decisive stroke that balances BP as intended.

 

[Star]

I'm not allowed to type in the real thread, but I'm really not a fan of it so I'll post here.

First off, the tone in the OP really rubs me the wrong way. “v184” and “a ludicrous amount of times” as though the ADVOU council is tirelessly maintaining the tier despite an incessantly naggy community. This is a bad look.

The last thread for baton pass changes in ADV was started in November 2021. That thread stretches to May 2022, where the council had to make follow-up bans because they silently reversed their policies on Soundproof and BP Smeargle as part of the new ruleset. That was 19 months ago.

I brought sand attack + swagger ninjask to SPL14 week 3, where I lost to Mcmeghan from a position with very high win%. My structure effectively remains the standard for BP now. People have experimented with leech seed partners and used toxic in modified rulesets (Mushi League, ADV Revival), but the outline is the same. You knew about this 10 months ago.

My point is the ADVOU council’s approach to bp tiering makes clear that they’re completely disengaged from the ADVOU playerbase. Three of the four members barely touch the tier aside from 0-2ing out of their legacy spots in Callous Invite. Marcop didn’t even bother this year. It feels like there's no intent in aiding the tier, just sweeping something ugly under the rug in time for SPL. It’s lazy and inept.

I hope that some more engaged ADV players will volunteer for these spots on the council. I think this would lead to more thoughtful policy, and I imagine those three would eagerly drop this burden if given the chance.

With regard to ADV baton pass policy, I (and I believe a big share of the playerbase) would prefer banning baton pass ninjask/speedboost/etc, which isn’t included in the options. Because of this, I propose we change nothing and make a better thread.

The v184 was a joke that admittedly may have been a poor choice, but I think its perfectly true and fair to say we've iterated on the BP issue an unprecedented amount. ADV and its community has gotten very special treatment from a tiering standpoint. We've bent general tiering policy an insane amount so far with each incremental change, which is why we had to draw a line in the sand after the last one in April 2022 and are only looking at more simplistic and extreme measures.

I'm well aware that a significant portion of the ADV OU community doesn't give a fuck about Smogon tiering frameworks and would rather do whatever they feel like at the time. We've compromised many many times on this over the years with BP. Each time it's the same "well if we do X specific, unorthodox rule we'll solve the issue". This ends up literally never being true, leading to the state that we're in and at this point we aren't willing to go further down that rabbit hole. From now on, like every other official tier on this site, we will try to stay within the bounds of the tiering framework and aim for a more simplistic ruleset.

As for your points about the problematic BP structures not being completely new, that's true of course but its disingenuous to pretend like they haven't seen a significant uptick in usage in the last couple months. Like with literally any tiering decision, we don't step in until we have a good amount of data to look at / see more significant outcry about it.

As for your points about the council, you are right about marcop (and in fact this was something I had addressed yesterday before your post anyway).

Admittedly that should have been done sooner. Taking shots at the rest of council for not playing is frankly absurd though lol. I play ADV year round and always have. Not to turn this into some stupid shit, but in 2023 I won a seasonal, made ADV cup semis, went far in revival and was first seed in the circuit by a good margin. Obviously my Callous run went poorly but god forbid someone has a bad tour. Roro obviously also plays year round (and your post wasn't targeted at him anyway) and while M Dragon's playing may not be as public he is also very active on the ladder which is obviously big in this community.

 

[FJ2K]

First line, every change made results in a new slightly different metagame. Of course people are going to point out something else is the issue. Making iterative changes as we go along is a perfectly valid form of optimization.

"I can understand the council being tired of dealing with this" How do you get tired from addressing the only tiering action for the tier you signed up to manage.. The tiering isn't even frequent. If you don't want to do it because you believe it is excessive work , let someone else take over.

Last two sentences: This strongly contradicts the current tiering philosophy of the current gen SV. Now ideally, SV shouldn't matter at all for ADV.
However it seems to be a point to keep ADV consistent with other gens as per Smogon guidelines. So if we want to stay consistent with the other tiers, how is ADV getting the complete inverse treatment to SV? SV is exhausting every option they have. They also actively promote people to voice their opinions and concerns, as opposed to ADV where council members and individuals like yourself seemingly try to berate people for wanting to be involved in tiering.

With all that being said, I think that the Ninjask ban is the way to go from here. It's an unhealthy metagame presence that serves to restrict teambuilding / team selection. Of the options, I'd only choose Speed Pass, the other options shouldn't be options at all. Hopefully a new thread can be created where a Ninjask Ban option is given, as this was the main request from the community. Maybe then you can start a Suspect Test so we can proceed.

 

[5imian]

The v184 was a joke that admittedly may have been a poor choice, but I think its perfectly true and fair to say we've iterated on the BP issue an unprecedented amount. ADV and it's community has gotten very special treatment from a tiering standpoint. We've bent general tiering policy an insane amount so far with each incremental change, which is why we had to draw a line in the sand after the last one in April 2022 and are only looking at more simplistic and extreme measures.

I'm well aware that a significant portion of the ADV OU community doesn't give a fuck about Smogon tiering frameworks and would rather do whatever they feel like at the time. We've compromised many many times on this over the years with BP. Each time it's the same "well if we do X specific, unorthodox rule we'll solve the issue". This ends up literally never being true, leading to the state that we're in and at this point we aren't willing to go further down that rabbit hole. From now on, like every other official tier on this site, we will try to stay within the bounds of the tiering framework and aim for a more simplistic ruleset.

As for your points about the problematic BP structures not being completely new, that's true of course but its disingenuous to pretend like they haven't seen a significant uptick in usage in the last couple months. Like with literally any tiering decision, we don't step in until we have a good amount of data to look at / see more significant outcry about it.

As for your points about the council, you are right about marcop (and in fact this was something I had addressed yesterday before your post anyway).
View attachment 579247
Admittedly that should have been done sooner. Taking shots at the rest of council for not playing is frankly absurd though lol. I play ADV year round and always have. Not to turn this into some stupid shit, but in 2023 I won a seasonal, made ADV cup semis, went far in revival and was first seed in the circuit by a good margin. Obviously my Callous run went poorly but god forbid someone has a bad tour. Roro obviously also plays year round (and your post wasn't targeted at him anyway) and while M Dragon's playing may not be as public he is also very active on the ladder which is obviously big in this community.

It is exhausting having to feel like we're pulling teeth to get change to happen and then have the council member making these posts also be the same council member who's repeatedly been dismissive, both here in multiple threads about the subject (see Asta's comment the last time this topic got brought up) and in other places as well. Combine that with the fact you've decided to put your foot down rather than be transparent and listen to the community leads to you coming off like a parent who's threatening "SO HELP ME IF YOU TALK ABOUT NINJASK/BP ONE MORE TIME I WILL TURN THIS CAR AROUND!"

I don't want to feel like we as a community have to have an adversarial relationship with council members in order to get things done.

What is so sacred about a 20 year old framework that clearly does not fit the way the people in the community who main the tier actually want to play the game? Just ban Ninjask and let the tier be run by the people who main it instead of letting it be a shit show.

The handling of this situation has literally got dedicated community members in my dms threatening to quit the game if it's mishandled. It'll be another major blow to a scene that we both want to grow.

 

[vapicuno]

As for your points about the council, you are right about marcop (and in fact this was something I had addressed yesterday before your post anyway).

Admittedly that should have been done sooner.

It feels awfully convenient that additional members are elected to the council right after this thread was created, not before. The present council gets to simultaneously 1) push through its current agenda while 2) showing that it cares about having diversity in representation, when in fact, the tiering options have already been made.

Regardless of whether the end result is the same, if the council is sincere,
1) Rescind the current threads and include the two new members in the discussion for the new tiering action.
2) Each council member should post clearly their personal position on the new tiering action, distinguishing their POV from Smogon's constraints if there are contradictions.
3) Don't use the urgency of SPL as an excuse. There are no supreme court judges to nominate before the next presidential election here.

 

[BigFatMantis]

I don’t fully comprehend the logic of “not wanting to revisit this anymore” when, if you end up banning speed pass entirely (and thereby undoing the current BP restriction that would now allow chainpassing), you have a much higher likelihood to actually revisit this because chainpassing is really dumb even without speedpassing. If you can just ban Ninjask (or just Speed Boost) it actually seems less likely we have to revisit this because there is far from any major outcry on Zap passing or Vap salac passing and it will be rather refreshing to play under the same BP rule restrictions but without Ninjask.

 

[Euglena]

Definitely not an expert in this tier, just play casually, but couldn't we just modify MultiPass to include substitute and/or other bp-able effects? Ninjask isn't that big of an issue without sub, and there really aren't too many other bp users who can fit bp, a stat booster, and sub on the same set (only one I could think of was vap). Otherwise, just ban speed boost, since it effectively does the same thing. Would suck to lose AgiliPass zapdos imo...

Also in favor of banning swagger, to me that's more necessary than changing the current bp clause.

 

[Zacpz]

Where do I go to wage a crusade against general tiering policy?

Also, glad to see the concerns RE Ninjask and community wishes for an option to ban that rather than speedpass addressed via dismissal.

 

[gvmgvm40]

I'd support adding accuracy moves/swagger to the suspect test, since their main use seems to be in conjunction with BP chains. If this is what we're doing, why not vote on SpeedPass + one passer only + accuracy/swagger clause, to minimize stupid cheesy stuff?

Also FREE MR MIME

 

[Smurf.]

This is just a running joke at this point.

Just ban ninjask lmao, this topic was never that hard.

 

[Shedinja-43152]

I can understand Baton Pass be baned from OU, you are doing that because all others gens do the same.
What I don't understand Baton Pass be limited even in Ubers.

 

[MindofLights]

I understand the general consensus is that ninjask is broken/uncompetitive, and maybe speedpass as a whole is as well.

I do think there is a step in between these two things, and one with less "collateral". Ban multiple speed boosts+baton pass.

Right now a ban on '(speed boosting moves or speed boost ability)+baton pass' would ban many combinations, but notably dd smeargle, agility zap, and ninjask. And it would maintain everyone's favorite berry passing sets. I do not know how realistic this is, but it struck me as an interesting in between option that covers what are considered the most egregious speedpass abusers while keeping the ban central to how baton pass functions.

I came upon the thought while considering how often ninjask needs to get +2 or even +3 for its sweepers/recievers. Oftentimes, you only need the +1, but many times you need an extra protect or substitute to guarantee you outspeed revenge killers. I'm not sure there is really any evidence that only a single speed boost from salac berry(or +2 from a lucky swellow) is even close to approaching the level of broken. As I considered, the more I thought the idea had merit as a way to remove only the strategies considered unhealthy for the tier. I think this ban is a nice way to keep salac(starf) pass in the tier while banning current and future unhealthy speedpass strats.



On another note, I like that mime is potentially being forgiven for his crimes, but I'm very wary of reversing what in my opinion was a healthy ban for the meta.

Edit: worth clarifying I don’t actually want to see this, I’d rather just see ninjask banned. But this would be better than banning speedpass at least

 

[Bedal Roscoe]

Hello, thank you for the opening of this thread. Very useful for the main playerbase.

As far as I am concerned, I am not a very good ADV OU player (I navigate around the 1300s-1400s elo rank after a couple of months of playing in the tier) but I would say that I am quite representative of an average ADV player so I hope my opinion will be relevant for you.

Regarding Baton pass tiering (and after being painfully swept by a Ninjask + Marowak team quite recently lol), I lean towards the following action:
- Ban Speed Boost ability (or Ninjask but I want to be consistent with Soundproof tiering) as a whole or only in combination with Baton Pass.

I am not favorable to pure speed passing ban (Agility or Salac Berry for instance) because I am not sure that other speed passing strats are as broken or uncompetitive as Ninjask teams. However, if it turns out to be also problematic, the speed passing ban should be done.

- Regarding other stat passing strategies (SD, CM etc...) and of course drypass, I find them very healthy to the metagame and not problematic afaik.
So No tiering action against the current clause.

- Regarding Swagger, I know it is another topic but please Ban it. If no tiering action is performed against Baton Pass or Ninjask, at least ban Swagger...It is totally uncompetitive and strengthens the frustration towards Ninjask BP teams (and its brokenness).