I didn't think anything in this thread could be more idiotic than the "ban all Sleep because the moves introduce variance" argument but nope you proved me wrong
I may not be verbatim, but I think I can say with 100% accuracy that Frustration will never be banned.
lmao
Do you think the move, in the context of Balanced Hackmons, leads to a better designed game? Whether it's overpowered (or even good) is irrelevant.
I am of the opinion that banning important, frequently used things should be done with extreme caution. However, when something is not widely used, outclassed, and adds virtually zero depth to the game while creating a pointless 50/50, that begs the question "Why was it included in the first place?"
For those of you who play MtG, imagine if there were A and B versions of every removal spell, and A and B versions of every creature. Other than letter, the different versions are exactly identical (and both versions count to the same 4 of a card per deck limit). However, A removal spells can only target A creatures, and B removal spells can only target B creatures.
Some Questions:
1. Is this good design?
2. Is "Don't play removal spells if you don't want to deal with it" the proper way to react?
3. Would the better player be more or less likely to win without this restriction?
4. If you were designing MtG, would you include this mechanic?
Some Comments:
1. Yes, I realize that this scenario is more extreme than the one we have here (meaning it would impact a much greater % of games). As stated before, the unimportance of frustration is part of what makes its banning so appealing to me (very little, if anything, would be lost and a significant amount of variance would be avoided).
2. If you are unfamiliar with MtG, all you really need to know to understand the above situation is that removal kills creatures and removes them from the board. It is reactive, like Chansey, which is why I chose it.
Lastly, I think that a lot of people have this idea that as little should be banned as possible. I think that rather than looking at the length of the banlist, the important thing is how much the banlist impacts the meta. You want to minimize the impact of the banlist on the meta while maximizing the competitiveness of the meta and maintaining a degree of diversity. Here, the (minor) gains to competitiveness outweigh the (almost nonexistent) impact on the meta.