Absolutely correct in that my opponent prolly could have avoided the magnezone 6-0 and possibly even avoided losing a mon to megacham (not sure if megacham could 1v1 sylv). However, most teams are not just one mon + a sleep absorber. If magnezone takes out 2 or 3 mons as opposed to 6-0ing a BP team, that BP team is absolutely crippled and it would be a tremendous feat if the chain got restarted. For mega medicham, all I really needed was a safe sylveon swap in and I could send in cham later to hit things some more. I definitely want to hear what you say, but I also want to make clear that I am proposing mons that are capable of leading into most/all of the opponent's BP team and can come out with a kill, not necessarily 6-0 the entire team.
That's just it. It's not that Magnezone and Mega Medicham shouldn't be able to 6-0, it's that a decent Baton Pass player won't let them get a single kill in the first place. To demonstrate, I'll address your replays.
First of all, the team your opponent used was pretty strange. Where's Vaporeon? Smeargle? Zapdos? Mr. Mime? Each of these are very important members of the standard Baton Pass teams, members that have been a major part of the discussion in this thread, and none of them made an appearance on this team. In fact, Vaporeon is one of the most essential members of these teams, and your opponent lacked it. As for his exact team, Absol and Celebi are really mediocre on Baton Pass teams, and Scizor is pretty unneeded when Scolipede can pass Iron Defense boosts itself. Speaking of which, there's no real reason for him to run Swords Dance on Scizor and Scolipede. Espeon is the single greatest win condition of most Baton Pass teams (although others can certainly work), and Espeon benefits far more from having Iron Defense boosts than Swords Dance boosts. In fact, I don't see evidence of
any Def-boosting moves anywhere on the team, so he's leaving out a very important element of Baton Pass teams entirely.
Now for the battles in particular, starting with the Magnezone replay. Your opponent's first move was to use Protect instead of Substitute. Why? It would have been far better to Substitute in case you used Substitute/Thunder Wave/etc. yourself (which you did). The worst that could happen was that Scolipede might get hit by a Scarf Thunderbolt or something, which is far from a OHKO and would give your opponent a huge advantage since you're now locked into an unboosted Thunderbolt and are easy setup bait for Celebi. If he had gone for Substitute first, he could have Protected the next turn and brought Sylveon in for free since Substitute would shield it from your first attack. Then he could set up a Calm Mind or two, allowing Sylveon to survive two Analytic-boosted Flash Cannons, and then go to Celebi, who completely curbstomps Magnezone at +2 SpD. Alternatively, he could have gone to Espeon, who easily tanks Thunderbolt and 2HKOs easily with Stored Power. There are also several mistakes he made throughout the match that could have turned that match around. For example, at turn 4, he would have been way better off using Calm Mind. Sylveon has a great chance of surviving an Analytic-boosted Flash Cannon at 58% health, and then he could go to Celebi or something. Magnezone should have never gotten that first kill.
Now we have the Medicham replay. First of all, if he had been running Iron Defense on Scolipede (which is the most optimal choice), this would have been a cinch. A +2 252 HP Scolipede easily survives Mega Medicham's Psycho Cut, and at +2 Def, Sylveon, Espeon, and Celebi all laugh at Mega Medicham altogether. Even without Iron Defense, he could have just stalled for a couple of turns with Substitute + Protect to gain a couple of Speed Boosts and then Baton Passed to Sylveon. Sylveon could then take Mega Medicham's Psycho Cut (and the Bullet Punch that follows), KO with Hyper Voice, and continue the chain. Celebi would have also been a solid switch, depending on the EVs he was running and what coverage moves you were running. I also have no idea why your opponent saw fit to go to Scizor there at all, seeing as how it gets destroyed by Mega Medicham's High Jump Kick.
In summary, the reason why those matches seemed so easy to you is because your opponent was using a suboptimal team and (as he freely admitted) did not have much experience using Baton Pass.
On a side note (and this isn't directed specifically at you, just at players in general), I kinda wonder just how many people have the idea that Baton Pass is easy to beat simply because they play a lot of players who don't use optimal teams or don't know how to use them. That's not to say that they never play good Baton Pass users or teams, just that they play way too many bad ones.
EDIT: On another side note, could people please stop saying things like, "People just want Baton Pass banned/nerfed because they don't like it," and statements along those lines? This is not an argument. All it is is an attempt to mischaracterize the other side in order to make it seem as though their argument is invalid and built on nothing but empty bias (in other words, it's complete ad hominem). There have been multiple arguments and reasons laid out in this thread and others about why people want it banned or nerfed. If you want to argue against those points, then fine, but stop trying to assign intentions to the other side. Saying, "You just want to nerf Baton Pass because you don't like it," is no more valid than me saying, "You just want to keep Baton Pass because you're too skill-less to use anything else."
