I am a fan of Baton Pass. I do not insist on keep Baton Pass in the game, and I agree with some of the things being said in this forum against Baton Pass. But I would like to respectfully present a case for Baton Pass. I ask that you read all the way to the end before you reply to my opinions, because I might have addressed your concerns somewhere down the line. Thanks in advance!
1
I will liken the Baton Pass team to a Belly Drumming Azumarill. These two things are extremely similar: we call them “niche” strategies. Given the unprepared opponent or the favorable situation, a Belly Drumming Azumarill could blast through an entire team with a combination of Belly Drum, Play Rough and Aqua Jet. Is this Azumarill formulaic? Yes. Are there variations? Somewhat. Does every team need to prepare for it? Yes. Or at least, they did.
I played XY OU when XY was just released. Back then, the Swords Dancing Talonflame, the Belly Drumming Azumarill, the Swords Dancing Aegislash seemed so good that many thought they should be banned to Ubers. So what happened?
Venusaur happened. Rotom Wash happened. Mandibuzz happened. The Pokemon community has responded with very, very specific answers to these niche strategies. Nowadays, I don’t use Azumarill anymore due to the absolutely enormous number of counters. I don’t use Baton Pass as much for the very same reason: there are far too many effective counters on the playing ground that I have to tread very, very carefully.
You might argue that Baton Pass requires really specific counters which a person would not include on their team were it not for the existence of Baton Pass. You might say that counters to Azumarill such as Venusaur are acceptable because they serve other purposes, too, such as checking Rotom Wash. However, the same is really true for any checks to Baton Pass. A Taunting Thundurus is extremely useful even when one isn’t dealing with a Baton Pass team. A Dragon Dancing Dragonite or a Quiver Dancing Volcarona can be deadly against any team. Just like we’ve made room for Venusaur and for Rotom Wash on our teams, we can make room for Pokemon that can answer to Baton Pass as well as function in other situations.
If the usage of Thundurus continues to rise like it has been doing ever since Denis (dEnIsSsS) made it to the top of the OU ladder, then we shall see a drop in the number of Baton Pass teams, just like the drop in the number of Azumarills, Talonflames and Aegislashes in OU.
2
Baton Pass is by no means perfect. There will always be ways to destroy a Baton Pass team. It may seem difficult now, but Thundurus Incarnate is almost an ideal check, just like how Venusaur perfectly checks Azumarill. To answer to Thundurus Incarnate, many Baton Pass user are switching to strategies that allow offense and boosting at the same time, so that Taunt will not shut down a team. Would this make a Baton Pass team invincible? No. In the process of making room for offense, we’ve dramatically slowed down our rate of boosting, making our teams much more vulnerable. I can liken this to the Tyranitar with Fire Blast in an effort to deal with Ferrothorn. Have we made Tyranitar invincible? Of course not. We’ve surely lost something the process – a Pursuit, a Superpower, a Stealth Rock.
Furthermore, the argument that Baton Pass makes the game unfair is self-defeating. If Baton Pass were a perfect strategy, then why doesn't everyone use it? There was a time when everyone believed that the Belly Drumming, Aqua Jetting Azumarill was almost foolproof – how wrong they were. Azumarill takes skill to use well nowadays – we have to clear the playing field of potential counters. The same goes for Talonflame and Life Orb Landorus. The truth is, Baton Pass does require skill and creativity to execute well. I think we have to acknowledge that not everyone uses Baton Pass because it actually isn’t easy to pull off. Too often do we get a Critical Hit in our face. Too often does Noivern or Pinsir come along to destroy our Scolipedes. We can switch to leading with Agility Zapdos, we can incorporate Substitute into our strategy, but with every choice there is an opportunity cost – we have forgone something else. And just like building any other team, we have to think about things like – have we covered the special attacker? Have we prepared for the priority Bullet Punch? The reality is that no team can prepare for absolutely everything.
Admittedly, we do go through a somewhat formulaic approach. Are they faster? Yes: Protect. No: Substitute. Am I weak to that type? Yes: stay in. No: switch out. However, I would like to point out that all of Pokemon is somewhat formulaic. Azumarill? Better send out Venusaur.
Sure, there might the occasional, “I predict he is going to switch so I’m going to switch to something that checks what he is going to switch into,” but please remember that virtually the same thinking applies to Baton Pass teams. Mr. Mime hates the Bullet Punch from Scizor, even after a few defense boosts. There are checks and counters we have to be wary of. We need to be cautious of our opponent's team and their next move. We have to be prepared for as many eventualities as we can.
3
My third argument is a concession. I am not against banning Baton Pass. I am, however, fully against banning particular components of Baton Pass, such as banning the combination of Magic Bounce Espeon and Speed Boost Scolipede, or the move Stored Power.
This is not in the spirit of Pokemon. That would be like saying, let’s ban Belly Drum on all Azumarills. Let’s ban Gale Wings on all Talonflames. Let’s ban Quick Attack on all Pinsirs.
What we can do, however, is ban certain gamebreaking strategies as a whole. We have banned Blaziken to Ubers because it was too strong for OU. We haven’t banned Flare Blitz and High Jump Kick. If you think about it, Blaziken would probably have stayed in OU if we’d just banned those two moves – we would have crippled the speedy chicken. But is handicapping Pokemon in this fashion the way we want to play this game? I certainly don't think so. Would you not agree that removing a certain component of the Baton Pass is like saying, “we don’t like you because you’re too strong, so we’re going to manipulate you so that you can’t harm us anymore. We're gonna bring you down to our level. Of course, feel free to still try Baton Passing, but I’m gonna sit here and laugh at your face.”
If it is indeed deemed “gamebreakingly strong”, please carpet ban the entire Baton Pass strategy (by, for example, banning teams with more than three Baton Pass users) instead of banning particular components.
That concludes my rant. I personally don't think Baton Pass is perfect enough or cheap enough to deserve a ban – it's only a niche strategy. Thank you for reading!
