BH Balanced Hackmons Suspects and Bans Thread

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Is there a way to force different nicknames on the same mons? Because I think with that change the entire uncompetitive argument vanishes.
I don't think that would be a solution. In a MMX spam team if MMX#3 and MMX#4 can OHKO my Zygod I still don't know it until either it kills it on their first turn out or I switch out to something else, in which case I'm taking an enormous risk if the switch in isn't something that walls it. Something like MMX#Pixiliate gives better results but that doesn't still help if it carries bolt strike for soundproof megabro, or is sash smash, or whatever, and you still may have to deal with MMX#Pixiliate#1 and MMX#Pixiliate#2. Not to mention the possibility of MMX#Tough_Claws who is really carrying Dazzling. You still wouldn't have enough info. Also I think the sole premise of needing special rules to make species spam competitive only adds to the ban argument.
 
I am maybe for a species clause, but not for a name clause.
I don't care if is MMX#3 or MMX#4 who kill my pokemon because i didn't know is set when it come in the battle.
The name clause change nothing for a spam HO...
 
I don't think that would be a solution. In a MMX spam team if MMX#3 and MMX#4 can OHKO my Zygod I still don't know it until either it kills it on their first turn out or I switch out to something else, in which case I'm taking an enormous risk if the switch in isn't something that walls it. Something like MMX#Pixiliate gives better results but that doesn't still help if it carries bolt strike for soundproof megabro, or is sash smash, or whatever, and you still may have to deal with MMX#Pixiliate#1 and MMX#Pixiliate#2. Not to mention the possibility of MMX#Tough_Claws who is really carrying Dazzling. You still wouldn't have enough info. Also I think the sole premise of needing special rules to make species spam competitive only adds to the ban argument.
At this point they're just lure sets tho. I don't think lures are uncompetitive.

Maybe if you want want to risk zygarde, go to another midground.
 
A "Name Clause" wouldn't solve everything. I could have several of a mon and name them "l", "I", "I ", "l ", "|", "!" for example. They'd all have "different names", but they look incredibly similar, identical infact in some cases. Or heck, could just do like "j", "j ", "j ", "j ", "j ", and "j ". Edit: The forums are truncating the extra spaces it seems, but I don't think the sim will.
 
A "Name Clause" wouldn't solve everything. I could have several of a mon and name them "l", "I", "I ", "l ", "|", "!" for example. They'd all have "different names", but they look incredibly similar, identical infact in some cases. Or heck, could just do like "j", "j ", "j ", "j ", "j ", and "j ". Edit: The forums are truncating the extra spaces it seems, but I don't think the sim will.
I don't think said technicalities should be the core of the argument.
The first case is solvable by the player by pasting it elsewhere. The second case is solvable by just removing leading/trailing blanks on a name.
 
Another case is that offensive spam teams are often 'I send a mon and it dies in battle, a switch is just a broken sash wasted'. In this situation having several copies of the team with the nicknames messed up. The foe wont know which one of the mons he is playing after all. This method can be also mixed with Rumors method. This ways almost break the nicknames clause after all.

191003

191005


191006

Please dont delete my meme this time.
SAY NO TO MEME SILENCING
 
At this point they're just lure sets tho. I don't think lures are uncompetitive.

Maybe if you want want to risk zygarde, go to another midground.
It wouldn't be a lure, it would be an abuse of the hypothetical naming clause equipped with ability in the name.

Only names wouldn't be enough, nobody can reasonably predict every time which MMX set just entered the field for the first time in a species spam match.
 
I don't think said technicalities should be the core of the argument.
The first case is solvable by the player by pasting it elsewhere. The second case is solvable by just removing leading/trailing blanks on a name.
I don't think it's a technicality. The whole point of a name clause is to let people use species spam without masking their different sets. There are ways around this that require non-trivial amount of coding to fix. I mean, here's another example.

Team A

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII (Kyogre-Primal) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Quiver Dance
- Ice Beam
- Leech Seed

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIUnique Name (Kyogre-Primal) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 0 SpA
- Coil
- Crabhammer
- Entrainment
- Leech Seed

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINotthesamename (Kyogre-Primal) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Primordial Sea
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Water Spout
- Ice Beam
- Trick
- Volt Switch


Team B

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( (Mewtwo-Mega-X) @ Mewtwonite X
Ability: Steadfast
- Avalanche

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((() (Mewtwo-Mega-X) @ Mewtwonite X
Ability: Steadfast
- Avalanche

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( (Mewtwo-Mega-X) @ Mewtwonite X
Ability: Pressure
- Aqua Tail

And here's how it shows in actual battle. (Ignore the identifying items/abilities, they're not the point at all.) These are all "unique names" but they'll all display identically in battle due to the way they're truncated. That requires more coding work to fix.


Besides, even then should blank spaces and going over the display length are fixed, should players be expected to copy and paste names into other sources to clearly identify characters? Do you really want to have to count the number of characters to tell the difference between a Diancie named MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM and a Diancie named MMMMMMMMMMMMMM and a Diancie named MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM and a Diance named MMMMMMMMMMMMM? Every time they switch? Trust me, the only reason people don't do junk like this is because they don't have to since not using nicknames at all gets a stronger effect with zero effort. But anyone who wants to win at all costs and is using a name-claused species spam team will do this. Trust me.

Name clause sounds good on paper, but there's a lot of holes in it that could be exploited to render it (almost) moot and I'm sure there's some I'm not even considering.
 
I'm not a BH player and sorry for the short post, but I believe its an important detail to clarify.
Nicknames being undistinguishable to human eye is absolutely irrelevant here. The whole point of suggested clause is so that the sim will distinguish them properly, and correctly show their known moves/abilities/items.
 
I'm not a BH player and sorry for the short post, but I believe its an important detail to clarify.
Nicknames being undistinguishable to human eye is absolutely irrelevant here. The whole point of suggested clause is so that the sim will distinguish them properly, and correctly show their known moves/abilities/items.
But it doesn't. Below screenshot using the Kyogres above. Switched around, used a few moves, clicked Extreme Speed on the Dazzling Ogre, and here's what it spat out. I copied and pasted the hover-over for the Kyogre user's Kyogre from the switch menu so it was visible here for comparison.

 

Ren

so ill say words i dont believe
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
But it doesn't. Below screenshot using the Kyogres above. Switched around, used a few moves, clicked Extreme Speed on the Dazzling Ogre, and here's what it spat out. I copied and pasted the hover-over for the Kyogre user's Kyogre from the switch menu so it was visible here for comparison.

The only reason this works in BH is because BH doesn't have a nickname clause. In a metagame such as Almost Any Ability with a nickname clause, the strategy won't even validate because the nickname shows up as the same despite being different.

For example, try validating this team in AAA.
Code:
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII (Alakazam-Mega) @ Alakazite
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Lonely Nature
- Double-Edge
- Focus Blast
- Fire Punch
- Encore

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDIFFERENT NAME (Banette) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Disable
- Dark Pulse
- Destiny Bond
- Foul Play
It should give you this error, despite the nicknames being different.
 
I think we are straying from the point here. As far as I can tell this discussion originated out of the argument that if one could tell the difference between mons on a species spam team, it would be easier to deal with and thus not bannable.
In my humble opinion, that’s a pretty poor argument. Teams with 6 mewtwos are bannable not because you can’t tell the difference between the mons, but rather because it takes no skill to make a team of 6 mewtwos, no skill to use it, and yet somehow this complete lack of skill or understanding of the game leads to winning against actual good players.

In my mind we should seek to make the meta game as skill based as possible. If there is a cancerous strat letting people with no BH experience win consistently (like say CFZ spam, assist don, sleep spam, contrary spam, setup spam, or running say 6 mewtwos) my opinion is ban that thing. I think this solidly falls into that category so I’m not sure why we are talking about nicknames.
 
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Champion Leon

Banned deucer.
Okay, so I think I have a mild idea. It’s mild, not wild - so bear with me.

Why not just make a Species Clause like the Ability Clause - 2 per team.

This is important because when people think of Species Clause, they think of 1 per team.

To avoid this whole 8 moves issue, make it automatically turn 1 Pokémon Shiny. This will create a different image and allow you to tell them apart. For example, Shiny Mew is Blue, and regular Mew is Pink.

The simulator can tell them apart as well. Since the images are different (like Busted Mimikyu and Disguise Mimikyu (before the ability is broken).

Let’s just have it automatically check if a second Pokémon of the same species provides a Shiny Check.

This is also useful because Shedinja’s HP is either 100% or 0%, so you cannot just memorize the HP % associated with each variant. But if 1 is shiny and another is not then you can still tell them apart, and most importantly, so can the simulator.

Further, the 2 per team is a middle ground between people saying “1 is too limiting” and others saying “we shouldn’t ban species spam at all”.

Since we cannot have more than 2 variants -
1) Shiny
2) Non-Shiny

Then 2 as a max makes the most sense.

If there are Pokémon that have less distinguishable Shinies - where the color difference, much like this post, is mild and not wild - then that might be a concern, but as far as I can tell, Shinies can solve this problem head on.
 
I think we are straying from the point here. As far as I can tell this discussion originated out of the argument that if one could tell the difference between mons on a species spam team, it would be easier to deal with and thus not bannable.
In my humble opinion, that’s a pretty poor argument. Teams with 6 mewtwos are bannable not because you can’t tell the difference between the mons, but rather because it takes no skill to make a team of 6 mewtwos, no skill to use it, and yet somehow this complete lack of skill or understanding of the game leads to winning against actual good players.

In my mind we should seek to make the meta game as skill based as possible. If there is a cancerous strat letting people with no BH experience win consistently (like say CFZ spam, assist don, sleep spam, contrary spam, setup spam, or running say 6 mewtwos) my opinion is ban that thing. I think this solidly falls into that category so I’m not sure why we are talking about nicknames.
Who are these elusive "bad players" I keep reading so much about? Name one verifiably-bad player who successfully "punches up" on the ladder to places they don't belong with Mewtwo spam. Some people may quickly jump to me as an example, but remember that before I started "exploiting" Mewtwo-spam, I was beating many of you--and even getting reqs with Meloettas, scarfed Zygardes and level 1 Bellsprouts.

When I first considered running Monospecies, quite a few users actually told me it was a bad idea. That it could never work, but I wanted the challenge, so I took the risk. MewtwoMenagerie, an alt that I initially created as an experiment, ultimately went on to reach into the 1760 range on ladder (with 1715 being the highest recorded score) before I decided to let it decay. This isn't a matter of "species spam" being overpowered, this is simply the realization that the investments of both myself, and the monospecies players before me are finally beginning to pay off.

Once you remove me from the equation, your argument gets even weaker, as most--if not all of the other monospecies players that are consistently performing well on ladder were going to do so anyway (as proven by the occasional low-ladder Regi/TTar spammers that never make a dent). Maybe it's time to consider that people using different strategies than what you're used to doesn't make them bad players, and perhaps it might be possible that different players have different preferences than you?

Many players seem to be so consumed by their conceptions of how the BH meta ought to be, that they forget they're still playing Pokemon. Unless you ban nearly every move and force people to run set mons, abilities, etc., you're always going to encounter something that you don't understand, and may not be equipped to handle. Every strategy still has a counter, however, and monospecies is no exception to this. Sure, Mewtwo number 4 with Refrige/BDrum/Espeed will one shot your Prank Tina switch-in, but who's forcing you to run that set? If you're having a problem with your usual wall, add a new wall or substitute your old one to cover your weaknesses. This form of perpetual adaptation is the foundation of any serious competition, and without it, stagnation, decay, and eventually, demise, are inevitable. If anything, the fact that the same handful of Tina/wall sets have gone this long without any meta-altering offensive threats to dethrone them (Not even Diancie and Kyurem are enough to curb the overabundance of these mons) is more uncompetitive than anything. As it currently stands, Monospecies is simply shifting the meta into a newer, healthier direction, wherein defensive players are forced to actually innovate new strategies, rather than recycling the same years-old sets that require little more than a few clicks to splash onto their teams.

The reality of the situation, however, is that these problem users don't genuinely think that Monospecies is overpowered, rather, they just want to see it gone because they don't like it, and have retroactively attempted to "prettify" their pettiness with laughably pathetic "arguments" that are about as opaque as glass. Unfortunately, since this is such a grassroots/narrative-driven meta, the salty, incoherent ranting that wouldn't fly in any other community backs the moderators into a corner wherein they either cave to these problem users' demands, or face extreme levels of backlash and bitterness that would make the community practically uninhabitable for them.

For that reason alone, I could see the merits of a suspect. As it currently stands, I'm fond of the current staff, and it would be easier for me to find a new strategy or even phantom-out of the meta itself than it would be for them to lose their connection with a community that they cared enough about to moderate. For as adamant as I can be, I know how to put things into perspective, and I believe that in a worst-case scenario, certain actions may have to be taken, even if they aren't in my best interests.

Until that day comes, however, I'll continue to play this format for the same reasons that I began to initially: The beautifully boundless possibilities and potential for expressiveness, for I truly believe that even now, this is the greatest format of them all.
 
I tried my best not to sound stupid.

Without name clause: When facing a species spam team without name clause, one has to continuously predict which set they're facing, this renders any prior information gathered useless as it is essentially reset everytime the mon switches out. This also makes it really hard (sometimes impossible) to figure out which moves used belong to what set or are on the same moveset. In that aspect, the species spam player has a significant advantage when it comes to how much information they can gather about each other's team.
With no way for the non-species spam player of knowing which pokemon is in front of them and with the species spam player potentially bringing any pokemon in front of anything to deliberately confuse his opponent, the game does turn more into guesswork than anything else.
As an example, if I have a tough claws sunsteel mmx, a fridge specs mmx and a scrappy mmx. And my opponent has a fur coat giratina, an Aegislash and a PH xerneas. He technically has a potential switchin to every mon I have. But even if my opponent already scouted and knows what sets I run, he has to guess which one is in at any given point, a wrong guess resulting in a dead pokemon. The species spam player can continuously force those guesses until they go his way.
This kind of building can be done with 6 of the same mon. It can also be done with 2 or 3 of the same mon. The same guesswork remains.
In that case species spam is uncompetitive as it limits the impact skill has on the game.

With a name clause: Many pokemon of the same species are essentially lures. Lures that the opponent can scout for with imposter or midgrounds or based on the opponent's plays. In that case you can have a team based on overloading, but you actually have to overload or successfully lure the mons you want down as opposed to just play brainless until your opponent guesses wrong. This is a competitive scenario.

About the 2 species clause: As I said, I think without name clause, the uncompetitive aspect remains with 2 of the same mon on one team (say pixilate shed and sturdyshed for example, take a guess who's on). But given this clause also has the shiny difference (in effect, a nickname clause) it seems like a weird middle ground.
For me, the only way this would make sense is if we deem species spam to be a broken strategy. In particular, that counterplay to 5 mmx would be unreasonable. If we say that then I think midgrounds such as 3 mon or 2 mon species clause would make sense. But I don't personally believe that species spam is overpowered. In fact moderate species spam has usually proven more common and more effective in tournament settings.

I believe a name clause is the easiest and shortest route to solving the uncompetitive aspect without imposing unnecessary restrictions on teambuilding and limiting player's options to be creative.

TLDR:
Name clause: best solution
Species clause: solves the problem but too heavy handed
2, 3, 4 or 5 mon species clause: Doesn't make sense unless we deem it op
2 species shiny clause: Basically a subpar name clause

As a personal note, species clause would make me very sad :(
 
i gotchu

i am an entitled and self absorbed brat who believes that a metagame with a reasonably sized playerbase like balanced hackmons exists solely to serve me and my personal desires. i been playing this game since 2016 when the meta was CFZs and water bubble. i haven't took a day off since then and have been through gengarite, magpull, illusion, pdon, and sleep. but this recent suspect, mray, will be the final straw and reason i will be leaving this skilless, stale, hax or use shed to win metagame. pay no attention to the six “i’m quitting” threats i have posted before: this time it is for real. despite there being no major tours after ompl, i know that the inclusion of diverse flyings in tandem with the new ban, the meta has completely been solved within this time and i have concluded with my analytical mind there is zero room for innovation and creativity. penguin (with mega mence over mega ray) is STILL the best team and i am through with your company after this team's domination for two months. please consider my fragile and overzealous feelings when suspecting and maybe i’ll grace the ladder with my toxic presence despite doing nothing other than spamming goddish
 
Side notes.
Species stacking in this year's OMPL (including 2 mon of the same species):
Species spam player won:
- sugarhigh vs jeran
- SL42 vs Chessking
- SL42 vs Tony
Species spam player lost:
- Tzop vs Mamp
- sugarhigh vs GL Volkner
- sugarhigh vs GL Volkner

BHLT
Species spam won:
Matiss98 vs AndyBody
stresh vs HungryRex
abriel gabram vs damflame
Species spam lost:
a loser vs betathunder
Sificon vs Chessking
power vs anaconja

One thing that may also be worth keeping in mind in this debacle is shell smash. Shell Smash appears often in successful species spam teams[1][2] and I think is part of the issue. Species spam causes quite a few switches for scouting purposes and Shell Smash on the switch reveals basically nothing about your set. Given that setup as a whole has been brought up numerous times I though I might as well bring that up now.
 
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The reality of the situation, however, is that these problem users don't genuinely think that Monospecies is overpowered, rather, they just want to see it gone because they don't like it, and have retroactively attempted to "prettify" their pettiness with laughably pathetic "arguments" that are about as opaque as glass.
Has anyone actually made the argument that species spam is overpowered? I don't think anyone thinks the strategy is too dominant. The issue has always been that preparing for species spam renders your team extremely susceptible to every other common strategy in the metagame. Of course you can adapt for species spam but by doing so you're devolving the game into a glorified RPS match where it's no longer the better player consistently winning outside of the worst amount of unfavorable luck happening, but by heavily skewed favorable team matchups. Now sure the concept of matchups always exists but there's a severe difference between having one Mewtwo with a lure set designed to beat it's typical counter which has an opportunity cost of having to give up other moves, and running five or six of them which can lure every usual switch-in and the person on the receiving end is forced to play a guessing game as to whether or not they'll lose their counter every time they switch in to scout if they aren't bringing it off of a slow pivot already.
 
PhantomVortex I can promise you that nobody (or at least nobody who isn't petty) is trying to ban species spam just because of you. I dunno who told you that mono-species was weak, since it's been a pretty strong strategy since Gen V. The only thing that's changed is the species used and ability clause interactions; Gen V was mono-PH Gigas/Slaking, Gen VI had Rays, Mewtwos, Kyogres, Groudons etc depending on when during the gen, Gen VII... mostly the same as Gen VI.


Anyway, moving on, good to see name clause actually works (I had no idea AAA had one and I have no idea why it needs one. I guess I can go look after this post). That definitely takes out one of the problems I have with species spam, provided there isn't any other way to fool the sim for an advantage. Though it still doesn't address the other two parts. Blueberrychill right above me said the first part, so I'm not gonna just resay that.


The other part? Early game prediction and information gathering is still obsfucated. I think this is easier explained with a scenario. Let's say we have a team with MMX, MDiancie, ZygardeC, MSableye, MAudino, and Chansey. (Before you point out any weaknesses this comp has, I went with the first reasonable looking this off the top of my head.) Right off the bat, I can start making some predictions: MMX is unlikely to be Pixilate/Refrigerate because Diancie is on the team. MMX will also most likely not be carrying any coverage that hurts Sableye, so I can assume its Dual STAB + set-up + a move Sableye's set won't care about. Zygarde is likely to be Soundproof to check Diancie and probably runs Waves to trap Imposters. Hence, Diancie is probably Boomburst/Ground coverage. Audino is likely a general defensive check and slow pivot. Chansey is probably Imposter since even Fur Coat isn't a fan of Imposter MMX.

That's quite a bit of information I can gather, predict with, and act on right from team preview. Even if things changed a bit, I could work with it. Like, if we replaced Sableye with Aegislash, I can make a good prediction of Flashfire and predict MMX and Diancie are both running Fire coverage and Diancie will not have Ground coverage while Zygarde might run a different, more general set other than Soundproof.

Now replace all of those mons, save Chansey, with 5 MMX. Almost all of that information is gone. Looking at MMX spam, I can guess there'll be 1-3 standard sets and 2-3 lures. But which standard sets and which moves? And which lures? And which one is which? I can only take assurance that Chansey is an Imposter to catch whatever weaknesses the team overlooked while everything else is mostly blank. With a name clause, I can eventually scout those and the sim will keep track but... I have to scout those. Meanwhile, the species spam team can analyze my team comp and make educated guesses about the sets I'm running and lead and act accordingly.

Does the first MMX check/counter my lead? I have no idea unless it has a lead ability to give it away. I could send in my own Imposter first, if I have one, but that'd be an obvious play, probably the most obvious play. And until the MMX start actually doing things, I'll continue to have no idea what the full sets are likely to be. They're also more likely to carry random, non-standard moves that I can't predict because I can't look at their team and go "he'd be dumb to have this coverage move because Imposter would break all his walls". He could have that coverage move one or multiple times and I won't know until I scout it.

As such, even with a name clause, species spam still has a very, very strong early game informational advantage. A name clause would help with mid and late game, but you're still forced onto the back foot at the start of every match against species spam if you're not running it yourself.
 

cityscapes

Take care of yourself.
is a Tiering Contributoris a Community Contributor Alumnus
Who are these elusive "bad players" I keep reading so much about? Name one verifiably-bad player who successfully "punches up" on the ladder to places they don't belong with Mewtwo spam. Some people may quickly jump to me as an example, but remember that before I started "exploiting" Mewtwo-spam, I was beating many of you--and even getting reqs with Meloettas, scarfed Zygardes and level 1 Bellsprouts.
i mean... no offense but i think you are a pretty bad player. from the information ive gotten through the experiences of other people as well as myself facing you on ladder, you don't make plays or construct any kind of game plan. you just click the obvious move every time. and you've always been using spam, so i'd say that any success you might have got is probably because of that, getting a matchup where the opponent's team simply cant handle several mmx/mmy or because they made a couple wrong guesses as to sets.

if you want to prove me wrong, you're welcome to use a non spam team and see how far you can get with that. or just take up the "dont be toxic on ladder" challenge and make me dislike you a bit less
 
One thing that may also be worth keeping in mind in this debacle is shell smash. Shell Smash appears often in successful species spam teams[1][2] and I think is part of the issue. Species spam causes quite a few switches for scouting purposes and Shell Smash on the switch reveals basically nothing about your set. Given that setup as a whole has been brought up numerous times I though I might as well bring that up now.
I want to bring up this point made by motherlove because I've felt this way for quite some time.
Most teams have 1 answer to smash mons being in the form of prankster haze (along with predicting smashes and spectraling but that's a bad answer). Species spam gets around that because mons like refrigerator mewtwo are capable of taking out the 3 most common hazers (those being zygarde, tina, and registeel) when that mon inevitably dies it makes fighting the other 5 smashers a losing battle. Even outside the context of species spam, I find the continued existence of moves like shell smash, tail glow and drum baffling.

My main problem with these moves is that they grant momentum. It feels inherently wrong to me that a game should be decided on a single move, and yet the whole reason people run these moves, is in the hope that it will allow them to sweep. Sure these moves have defences, but they are incredibly incredibly passive defences and that is the real reason why these moves, though not ideal, where allowable in gen 6. In gen 7 there was a severe neutralisation of topsy turvy along with the addition of the move power trip and worst of all, the addition of dazzling and dark immunity. These last two abilities practically beg to be utilised by smash users and because focus sash is a thing, there's not really much answer to these mons becides sitting there and hazing away or hoping to take a +2 coverage move.

I don't really have a problem with moves like shift gear, quiver dance and (still deciding on this one) swords dance for a few reasons, One, they don't act as instant "you lose" buttons because they require some time to build up enough power to become truly game ending, and two because they take inherently longer to setup they are more predictable. When your opponent sends in a poison heal mon or a primal groudon, it's a safe bet that it will have quiver or shift. They have to be on a mon that is bulky because shift doesn't instantly make up for damage lost through boosting like the other moves I mentioned do.

The first move I'm going to look at is Tail glow, because it's basically the least competitive of the three, purely from a effect standpoint. It gives +3 spA with no penalties which means tail glowing-> attacking yields more damage than simply attacking twice. This means if your mon lives the next turn, there is 0 incentive not to tail glow That just screams to me "Why is this allowed." I'm pretty sure the whole previous suspect was mostly misdirected anger at Tail Glow.

Belly Drum is a lot more memey but still pretty dumb in my opinion. Nobody wants to fight some Belly drum triage/priority abuser because that's pretty dumb. If there's a move that allows you to win a game off 1 turn more than any other, It's belly drum.

Shell smash+razzle dazzle is horrible. It allows mons to outspeed pretty much any possible switchin except scarf chansey (which will need a sacrifice to get in and won't work on gengar, and haze. I don't understand why I have to explain this, but haze is not a counter, it is a check. It in no way dissuades a mon from boosting back up again.

Well I'm ranting; tl;dr species spam teams almost require boosting (and especially smash) to function and without it they wouldn't have nearly the same success. This isn't an answer to species spam, but it sure would make it less relevant and make the metagame healthier overall.
 

Champion Leon

Banned deucer.
I want to bring up this point made by motherlove because I've felt this way for quite some time.
Most teams have 1 answer to smash mons being in the form of prankster haze (along with predicting smashes and spectraling but that's a bad answer). Species spam gets around that because mons like refrigerator mewtwo are capable of taking out the 3 most common hazers (those being zygarde, tina, and registeel) when that mon inevitably dies it makes fighting the other 5 smashers a losing battle. Even outside the context of species spam, I find the continued existence of moves like shell smash, tail glow and drum baffling.

My main problem with these moves is that they grant momentum. It feels inherently wrong to me that a game should be decided on a single move, and yet the whole reason people run these moves, is in the hope that it will allow them to sweep. Sure these moves have defences, but they are incredibly incredibly passive defences and that is the real reason why these moves, though not ideal, where allowable in gen 6. In gen 7 there was a severe neutralisation of topsy turvy along with the addition of the move power trip and worst of all, the addition of dazzling and dark immunity. These last two abilities practically beg to be utilised by smash users and because focus sash is a thing, there's not really much answer to these mons becides sitting there and hazing away or hoping to take a +2 coverage move.

I don't really have a problem with moves like shift gear, quiver dance and (still deciding on this one) swords dance for a few reasons, One, they don't act as instant "you lose" buttons because they require some time to build up enough power to become truly game ending, and two because they take inherently longer to setup they are more predictable. When your opponent sends in a poison heal mon or a primal groudon, it's a safe bet that it will have quiver or shift. They have to be on a mon that is bulky because shift doesn't instantly make up for damage lost through boosting like the other moves I mentioned do.

The first move I'm going to look at is Tail glow, because it's basically the least competitive of the three, purely from a effect standpoint. It gives +3 spA with no penalties which means tail glowing-> attacking yields more damage than simply attacking twice. This means if your mon lives the next turn, there is 0 incentive not to tail glow That just screams to me "Why is this allowed." I'm pretty sure the whole previous suspect was mostly misdirected anger at Tail Glow.

Belly Drum is a lot more memey but still pretty dumb in my opinion. Nobody wants to fight some Belly drum triage/priority abuser because that's pretty dumb. If there's a move that allows you to win a game off 1 turn more than any other, It's belly drum.

Shell smash+razzle dazzle is horrible. It allows mons to outspeed pretty much any possible switchin except scarf chansey (which will need a sacrifice to get in and won't work on gengar, and haze. I don't understand why I have to explain this, but haze is not a counter, it is a check. It in no way dissuades a mon from boosting back up again.

Well I'm ranting; tl;dr species spam teams almost require boosting (and especially smash) to function and without it they wouldn't have nearly the same success. This isn't an answer to species spam, but it sure would make it less relevant and make the metagame healthier overall.
I agree, mostly, but we do have other checks and answers than simply Prankster Haze.

Resistant Unaware, as well as Prankster Encore, plus Taunt, or Topsy Turvey (including without Prankster to hit Dazzling / Dark-Types).

Sometimes Unaware is paired with Topsy-Turvey so it can hit normal types, and bypass anti-Priority mons. I know I faced Unaware Gyarados-Mega with Topsy-Turvey and it worked very well to block Photon, handle Sunsteel and Moongeist, and not fear Normal-type immunities.

While there is no universal Unaware user since you cannot be immune to all 3 Moldy Moves, using very bulky Pokémon even without Unaware such as Fur Coat Slowbro-Mega can be a hard counter to quite a few variants of physical Moldy Move sweepers like MMX, and Dusk-Mane.

RegenVest sets can still come in on non-Simple Dazzling Smash, since their item doesn’t get bypassed by Moldy Moves like Unaware would. Since they also Spectral Thief, they can work as a check, and if you have to switch out, it doesn’t cost the RegenVest user as much.

I don’t think Prankster Haze is the only answer, as it strictly relies on a safe switch-in (or just a smart switch - such as sending in the Hazer on the turn they use a set up move).

For niche:
Plus we still have things like phazer moves (Dragon Tail, Whirlwind), Spore / Lovely Kiss, Sticky Webs (slows down Dazzling users to be KOed before setup, and identifies the random Simple users), etc.

TLDR - I agree boosting can be a huge factor when facing teams, but let’s not undersell some of our defensive options.
 
TLDR - I agree boosting can be a huge factor when facing teams, but let’s not undersell some of our defensive options.
Agreed. For me I often run a dedicated Spectral Thief unaware user like Yveltal, paired with a prankster Haze user like Solgaleo that can cover the unaware mons primary weakness. It doesn't tend to leave me wanting for extra moves or mons as long as they have other major utilities besides anti-smash.
 
Unaware, as I have stated previously, is a fairly poor check. The ability grants no extra buff to survival during normal gameplay, which makes it nearly impossible for an unaware mon to keep up with the chip damage of u-turn, rocks, etc. against a smash team. Mold moves further contribute to this problem. Most significant of all, by running unaware you have committed to filling 1/6 of your team with a dead weight in all non smash battles.

Back when Pdon was a thing, it was a quite common to run fur coat Giratina on nearly every team to stop it. FC Tina is overall a far better mon in every situation aside from against smash. It had good utility against all physical breakers (photon wasn’t introduced yet), including things like adapt chomp and adapt ttar. Despite FC Tina being a decent mon, the community decided it didn’t want to have to run it on every team. (So I’m not sure why running a subpar mon on every team is acceptable)

You know what else makes a decent mon? Prankster. Show me a single balanced high Ladder team that does not utilize prankster. I don’t know what to say about this, it seems like the actual definition of meta centralization to me. To be honest I’m quite tired of using prankster on every team I make. It has great defensive utility sure, but I personally don’t want to run the same mon over and over again all the time, however good it might be. The current presence of smash makes teams without prankster or unaware very weak to smash. We are in a meta that nearly forces you to run prankster. I personally have spectated and lost many games where prank registeel or prank ZygardeC dies and the entire rest of the team falls soon after to smash. Not to mention that haze does not constitute a check because it has no way of threatening the opposing mon. It is incredibly passive and relies on the smashing mon not having coverage that kills the hazer (close combat for regi and ice hammer for ZygardeC and to a lesser extent Tina)

So why is it that we are forced to use imperfect solutions like unaware and prankster? Because the community has decided (so far) that it is more worthwhile to keep moves like tail glow, belly drum, and smash than it is to avoid meta centralization and the promotion of otherwise bad Pokemon (talking about unaware here not prank).
 
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