Baton Pass - its role in the metagame and possible solutions to nerf full Baton Pass chains

[jbtc10]

There actually was a strategy that BP was helpless against - SwagPlay. Funny how both are relatively non-interactive strategies (BP only cares about boosting up until Stored Power/Hyper Voice KOs everything, SwagPlay only cares about Confusing/Paralyzing the opponent until they either kill themselves or they're taken out by Foul Plays) but where BP works by skewing the odds entirely in their favor, Swagplay wins against them by making luck the *only* important factor.

Not exactly. BP had a winnable match-up against Swagplay because of Magic Bounce, only having Special Attackers with no Atk IV's which made Foul Play much less effective, and the fact that more than half of the team members carried Substitute to put a massive damper on the Parafusion aspect of the strategy, which Swagplay almost completely revolved around. Towards the end of the test, Swagplay was less common to see than Baton Pass because of how much more reliable it was as a strategy and the fact that it had this decent match-up against it. The BP player could lead with a physically defensive Espeon with 0 Atk IV's (Foul Play couldn't break the Sub), put in a Substitute, and then pass into Scollipede to start gaining Iron Defense boosts to make the Subs basically unbreakable for Swagplay via Foul Play from that point onward, or just Calm Mind up on the spot and dent the Swagplay team quite easily. That said, Swagplay certainly tried to adapt to BP by including things like more Prankster Taunt users and sometimes even a standalone sweeper of their own like Mega Pinsir, and the BP player always had to be very mindful of Ditto, which could come in whenever a Sub wasn't up, copy their boosts and either pass them on to another member, or try and counter sweep if enough boosts had been obtained.

To be honest, I thought this time in the meta was actually interesting to watch, play and construct in, and the creativity and counters that were being conjured up during this time was pretty damn interesting to behold. We saw a lot of Stall teams popping up because of how good they were against the standard Swagplay teams since Chansey was virtually untouchable, could pass essentially free Wishes and had Seismic Toss to always break Subs. Then we saw Swagplay start to include things like Gothitelle to break through this idea, then Shed Shell Blissey became a thing (kind of like what happened in Ubers this gen because of the presence of Mega Gengar), who could switch directly into a Pursuit user like T-Tar (who resisted Foul Play and had Sand Stream to cancel their Lefties and give them passive damage behind their Subs). Creativity and team building options during this time was arguably higher than at any other point in the game, and the fact that the meta wasn't so streamlined in terms of the strategies and pokemon that were viable gave it a nice element that we don't see as much of anymore, so there certainly were positives.

 

[the-bumper-car]

Swagplay vs BP was like Aliens vs. Predator. No matter who won, everyone else lost.

It was also ultimately a game which could get decided in the first few rounds. Swagplay won if they predicted the Espeon switch and nailed him with a Foul Play/Knock Off. BP won if they safely got a Sub up. All the other playstyles suffered as Swagplay took out Offensive teams and BP always beat Stall. Therefore, in conclusion, BP should go join Swagplay and gtfo of OU.

 

[AwesomeFennekin]

Swagplay vs BP was like Aliens vs. Predator. No matter who won, everyone else lost.

It was also ultimately a game which could get decided in the first few rounds. Swagplay won if they predicted the Espeon switch and nailed him with a Foul Play/Knock Off. BP won if they safely got a Sub up. All the other playstyles suffered as Swagplay took out Offensive teams and BP always beat Stall. Therefore, in conclusion, BP should go join Swagplay and gtfo of OU.

You do realize you just contradicted yourself.
Swagplay, I can understand, but BP has its role in the meta.
Stall AND Swagplay were the ways to scare off most offensive teams. Then Swagger got the boot. If baton pass gets the boot too, the meta could possibly fall. I believe that having a clause that limits 3 Pokes to BPass should fix this. Bpass is also a nice stall stopper. Yes, one could argue with Taunt, but:
1. Taunt only lasts 3 turns.
2. Even then, the Pokemon could switch.
Speaking of Taunt Switching, Prankster taunt mons can stop BP. Even if the BPasser DOES have an attacking move, they have to switch out to stop the Taunt, removing their boosts with it.
IN CONCLUSION, its not BP that should be nerfed, but FULL BP chains. Like I said, a clause that limits 3 Pokemon that has BP on its moveset per team can be another part of the glue that keeps the meta up.
UU, RU, and NU, however....

 

[BrellowBran]

I recently read a post that went like, "BP>Stall>Regular>BP counter>BP". Oh no! How horrible must it be to have elements of rock paper scissors in Pokemon? Yet it seems a strangely familiar... Oh thats right! "Grass>Water>Fire>Grass". If you're having trouble with a strategy in a competitive game, you should change yourself so you can evolve with the game. If its not BP, then a new strategy will arise and take its place. Then what would you do? Make another 70+ page thread on banning that too?? Also, if there were any sort of ban or limit to the number of baton passers, I find 3 or 4 baton passers per team very manageable. Three allows you to have your standard baton passers, "speed boost, psychic and fairy" along with 3 regular OU Pokemon that can help you counter standard threats and other baton passers. Here is how I use 2 baton passers on my team.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-113505136

 

[Reymedy]

You do realize you just contradicted yourself.
Swagplay, I can understand, but BP has its role in the meta.
Stall AND Swagplay were the ways to scare off most offensive teams. Then Swagger got the boot. If baton pass gets the boot too, the meta could possibly fall. I believe that having a clause that limits 3 Pokes to BPass should fix this. Bpass is also a nice stall stopper. Yes, one could argue with Taunt, but:
1. Taunt only lasts 3 turns.
2. Even then, the Pokemon could switch.
Speaking of Taunt Switching, Prankster taunt mons can stop BP. Even if the BPasser DOES have an attacking move, they have to switch out to stop the Taunt, removing their boosts with it.
IN CONCLUSION, its not BP that should be nerfed, but FULL BP chains. Like I said, a clause that limits 3 Pokemon that has BP on its moveset per team can be another part of the glue that keeps the meta up.
UU, RU, and NU, however....

THE META COULD FALL

edit : so dictator haunter doesn't delete it :

the question being, do we need baton pass ?
well obviously no, the competitive games are fine without it as far as I know. People get laughed at if they use Baton Pass in important games, since it's like admitting that you can't win by traditionnal means... Thus, admitting that you already consider yourself as less good than your opponent (which means, you already lost in everybody's minds).
It's basically the same shit as SwaggerPlay. Get full Baton Pass teams out of the ladder with some combinaison ban, everybody will be happy, and those who arent : get better =).
It's already taboo in tournaments so who cares.

 

[aVocado]

Couldn't we have a kind of suspect test where we test how BP works with 4 members. If the test proves that BP at 4 members is still too powerful We lower BP to 3 members. It might take a time to actually gather the results and voting period but it's an effective way so we won't have to have a thread dedicated to nerfing BP again.

Jukain already used teams consisting of 4 BP users and 2 random Pokemon, and it still worked like it always did. Scolipede passes speed and defense, 2 other Pokemon to pass Calm Minds or other things like Ingrain or some shit, and espeon with stored Power.

 

[jbtc10]

4 members is still easily functional, and can even be better in some cases because there's really only 4 essential components anyway (Scolipede, Defensive Wall, Special Wall, Espeon) and the other slots you'd just be cutting the gimmicks like Smeargle for something which can actually address any problems the team has, a back-up sweeper, or just good standalone pokemon which fair well against the meta and hardly detract from the effectiveness of the team as a whole and reduce the '1-dimensionality'.

 

[Prince Oberyn]

Jukain already used teams consisting of 4 BP users and 2 random Pokemon, and it still worked like it always did. Scolipede passes speed and defense, 2 other Pokemon to pass Calm Minds or other things like Ingrain or some shit, and espeon with stored Power.

What if you just banned Baton Pass + Stored Power?
Without Stored Power, BP chains are useless, right? This way Espeon can keep Magic Bounce, Baton Pass can still be utilised and the dull tactic that is Baton Pass chaining is removed from the meta.

 

[Ender Wiggin]

What if you just banned Baton Pass + Stored Power?
Without Stored Power, BP chains are useless, right? This way Espeon can keep Magic Bounce, Baton Pass can still be utilised and the dull tactic that is Baton Pass chaining is removed from the meta.

Try taking a +4 hyper voice to the face when said pokemon is loaded with defense boosts. Stored power only makes the job slightly faster. It is in no way overpowered on a BP team.

 

[Lazer81095]

I think a good solution to this issue is to create a Baton Pass Clause. My idea for the clause would be that no more than two Pokemon on the same team may have Baton Pass.

 

[Impy]

Wow, are we really talking about this?

Swagplay I could understand, and fully agreed with. But I really, really don't think the Baton Pass playstyle hurts the meta or presents itself as an insurmountable, irritating challenge. It's not even that difficult to counter, many members of a baton pass chain are very weak so pack a Crobat with infiltrator or something. If you break the chain your opponent pretty much loses right there. And if you've passed something like shell smash to sheer force Nidoking and have removed all priority threats you kind of deserve to win.

For what it's worth, I wouldn't mind a baton pass clause. Packing more than three baton passers is putting all of your eggs in one basket anyways.

 

[Dunhilina]

Having 4 BP on a team causes the BP chain to be more about skill and prediction than before. You can't have a catch all answer to everything inside of the chain and if you have to go outside of the chain to answer something, it makes countering it much easier. I feel that this would not only keep the strategy alive but cause it to be more about skill and prediction than before, along with no longer being an auto win/lose when you see the team pop up if you are using a stall team. Obviously testing would be the best way to see if it the BP teams are still too good or not.

 

[Liarliarpantsonfire]

Jukain already used teams consisting of 4 BP users and 2 random Pokemon, and it still worked like it always did. Scolipede passes speed and defense, 2 other Pokemon to pass Calm Minds or other things like Ingrain or some shit, and espeon with stored Power.

Jukain also said literally (in one of those replays even) that he was collecting replays so they could ban Baton Pass. Obviously he's not going to post replays where he's using Baton Pass and gets his ass kicked, because he wants Baton Pass teams gone. Basically you can take those replays with a grain of salt, as they focus on the strengths but don't show the weaknesses of Baton Pass.

 

[Baharoth]

Jukain also said literally (in one of those replays even) that he was collecting replays so they could ban Baton Pass. Obviously he's not going to post replays where he's using Baton Pass and gets his ass kicked, because he wants Baton Pass teams gone. Basically you can take those replays with a grain of salt, as they focus on the strengths but don't show the weaknesses of Baton Pass.

And his replays were against guys in the 1500 and one in 1600 iirc while he himself is what? 1800+? That just proves that the better player usually wins. Pick a 1200 player, give him a bp team and let him play against 1700+ players, if he wins more than 50% (which he wont) that would be a prove.

 

[WebBowser]

Quick question, what do you consider crossing your fingers for crits? Is that not luck too?
If I don't have a poke at the Team Preview to stop it, I can hope for a crit. Which is entirely luck-based.
But, I can agree that it overcentralizes the game.
There would be no point in opening a "OU (little skill BP ladder)", it'd just mean a crap ton of people using BP. There'd be no point in stepping in there.

I think the difference that he was trying to get at was that swagplay relied on hax to muscle past it's checks and counters, while BP simply has very few counters to begin with. Think evasion vs Arceus. Both of them are broken and have 0 place in OU, but for very different reasons. Arceus is not inherently uncompetitive, he's just so much more powerful then the rest of the OU tier that pretty much the only thing in OU that could stand up to him are the very, very best walls/wallbreakers and himself. Evasion has counters, but most of them rely on getting lucky with the dice role, much like swagplay. The rest are pretty much unviable in OU.

You can still believe that BP is too powerful and that it needs a nerf, however, it is no more uncompetitive then your average uber (btw, ubers is a perfectly legitimate competitive tier), it is simply too powerful atm.

 

[dr dude]

Well, I'm just posting my opinion about this. not that I'm a very experienced player or anything
tbh, i don't see much point in just banning BP. its fairly easy to stop the chain although it can be worse to stop a BP-sweeper
talonflame can bravebird both smeargle and scolipede. the former can be stopped with a priority move after talon has fell asleep and switched out so it becomes pretty much deadweight while the later gets OHKO'ed. if the chain has no ingrain, it can just be phazed away. haze reks everything, prankster taunt (thundurus, sableye) can stop the chain if the one they taunt has no attacking moves. trick can stop an important member, unaware can stop most sweepers if they are useless without boosts. crits happens no mather what. ik there are espeons ´, but its frail and it shouldn't be hard to get of a knock off or whatever. ik magic coat can be used on smeargle, so don't start with that.

 

[AM]

Wow, are we really talking about this?

Swagplay I could understand, and fully agreed with. But I really, really don't think the Baton Pass playstyle hurts the meta or presents itself as an insurmountable, irritating challenge. It's not even that difficult to counter, many members of a baton pass chain are very weak so pack a Crobat with infiltrator or something. If you break the chain your opponent pretty much loses right there. And if you've passed something like shell smash to sheer force Nidoking and have removed all priority threats you kind of deserve to win.

For what it's worth, I wouldn't mind a baton pass clause. Packing more than three baton passers is putting all of your eggs in one basket anyways.

Regarding that statement I bolded, that is not the problem that is being discussed with BP. BP used to that extent is perfectly fine and showcases BP used as a legitimate playstyle, at least in my opinion. The discussion is about entire teams that utilize BP chains, which is what I truly believe is hurting the meta right now. Also these baton pass members aren't necessarily as weak as you think they would be. Not going to repeat the same old with what people assume are legitimate counters and checks, why it's broken, etc. All that's been stated in the last 72 pages. As you stated and others have already considered, a limit on BP users more than likely will be a more logical solution.

 

[Impy]

Regarding that statement I bolded, that is not the problem that is being discussed with BP. BP used to that extent is perfectly fine and showcases BP used as a legitimate playstyle, at least in my opinion. The discussion is about entire teams that utilize BP chains, which is what I truly believe is hurting the meta right now. Also these baton pass members aren't necessarily as weak as you think they would be. Not going to repeat the same old with what people assume are legitimate counters and checks, why it's broken, etc. All that's been stated in the last 72 pages. As you stated and others have already considered, a limit on BP users more than likely will be a more logical solution.

Well I don't disagree with you, I DID say I wouldn't mind a clause. You should really only be using three passers at the maximum. If the clause limits it to two then it's just neutering the playstyle too much in my opinion. Although I personally only ever ran two when I used BP.

 

[Arcanine is Regal]

OK i wish I had the time and desire to read through all 70 pages...but i dont. So im sorry if im just echoing peoples opinions, but I play near the top of the ladder as I have two accounts well past 1800. And it is clear that baton pass is limiting the meta game as far as creative team building goes. There are maybe 3 counters to bp and only one of them can be effective against other teams besides bp and that counter is taunt mega gyarados, not only is it immune to stored power but it also can taunt espeon while setting up in baton pass users face. That being said it forces gyarados to give up a coverage move like ice fang making it much harder to deal with dragons on regular teams.

Actually lil manaphy alos brought to my attention that mega gardevoir is also a nice stop to bp as it hits through subs and can trace speed boost scolipede.

Anyway that being said, bp in the hands of good players is simply unstoppable and they will keep using it until it gets nerfed(I am not sure if I am happy they do this or not) but the only two ways i can think of reasonably nerfing BP is to limit the number of baton pass users to....3 sounds about right. Or make baton pass and magic bounce not compatible.

 

[Shoot For Zero]

I'm saying if I'm up against a BP team and I'm not using my stall team, then I may not have a counter to BP. So if I even dream of having a chance against this BP team, I've got to hope for a crit. And that's just not cool.

What's not cool is if you bring a team that's not equipped to deal with the meta.

Now, *fetches megaphone*

AFTER HAVING READ THIS THREAD:
To those who believe BP is fine where it is:
I have concluded that:
.
I) BP chains are a competitive strategy.
II) BP chains are competitive for the wrong reasons:

• They make the same plays regardless of their Pilot.
• They make the same plays regardless of their Opponent.
• They make the same plays regardless of the current meta.
• They require specific counters a player would not use otherwise.
• Teams using these counters will not ladder as well as teams that don't. This means:

III) In a BP chain environment, a player's strategy determines their rank more than their skill level does.
IV) BP chains are an unbalanced strategy.


TL;DR: This thread is about how to handle BP, not whether to handle BP.

 

[Rafael J. Feliciano]

OK i wish I had the time and desire to read through all 70 pages...but i dont. So im sorry if im just echoing peoples opinions, but I play near the top of the ladder as I have two accounts well past 1800. And it is clear that baton pass is limiting the meta game as far as creative team building goes. There are maybe 3 counters to bp and only one of them can be effective against other teams besides bp and that counter is taunt mega gyarados, not only is it immune to stored power but it also can taunt espeon while setting up in baton pass users face. That being said it forces gyarados to give up a coverage move like ice fang making it much harder to deal with dragons on regular teams.

Actually lil manaphy alos brought to my attention that mega gardevoir is also a nice stop to bp as it hits through subs and can trace speed boost scolipede.

Anyway that being said, bp in the hands of good players is simply unstoppable and they will keep using it until it gets nerfed(I am not sure if I am happy they do this or not) but the only two ways i can think of reasonably nerfing BP is to limit the number of baton pass users to....3 sounds about right. Or make baton pass and magic bounce not compatible.

Thanks for the wonderful input Mega Scizor...

Facts are facts that at this point; when you have some of the better players on the ladder unamiously agreeing that BP is not healthy for the game, whether its through limiting team building options or through the heavy amount of testimonies that agree that BP requires little skill to the point that players with little knowledge can grab a BP team and sky-rocket up the ladder, and thus, something needs to be done to nerf BP.

So (once again) either:

A. 3 BP User Cap

OR

B. Complex Ban: "Speed Boost + Magic Bounce"

 

[the-bumper-car]

You do realize you just contradicted yourself.
Swagplay, I can understand, but BP has its role in the meta.
Stall AND Swagplay were the ways to scare off most offensive teams. Then Swagger got the boot. If baton pass gets the boot too, the meta could possibly fall. I believe that having a clause that limits 3 Pokes to BPass should fix this. Bpass is also a nice stall stopper. Yes, one could argue with Taunt, but:
1. Taunt only lasts 3 turns.
2. Even then, the Pokemon could switch.
Speaking of Taunt Switching, Prankster taunt mons can stop BP. Even if the BPasser DOES have an attacking move, they have to switch out to stop the Taunt, removing their boosts with it.
IN CONCLUSION, its not BP that should be nerfed, but FULL BP chains. Like I said, a clause that limits 3 Pokemon that has BP on its moveset per team can be another part of the glue that keeps the meta up.
UU, RU, and NU, however....

For what it's worth, I'm also referring to Full BP chains. (Man, that's a clunky name for them - how about we call em BP Abuse?) And I agree that 3 is probably the better limit than 4 BP users.

Limiting BP Abuse teams to only 3 BP users means they have to make a hard choice on who to bring. Scolipede and Espeon are solid locks, but then they have to choose between Sylveon for the Hyper Voice, Tankiness, Clericness, and Fairy typing, Smeargle for the Spore/Dark Void, Ingrain, and Quiver Dance, or Zapdos for the ability to counter the top offensive threats of OU who can actually threaten Scolipede and Espeon past their Subs/Boosts. That also means they won't have answers for 90% of the threats in OU anymore.

If Swagplay was the team that had only one strategy, but that strategy beat everyone else, BP Abuse is currently the team that has a counter for everything, and a counter for the counter you brought. Ultimately this means both teams are so boring and repetitive to both play with and play against - they just also happen to keep on fucking winning against all other strategies too.

 

[Eievui-Nymphia]

There have been a lot of bans that has been done more of the starategies being "uncompetitive" than actually being "broken" per se. Uncompetive means that the strategies is detrimental to the metagame because it uses too much luck, or strategies that change too much the metagame that is not healthy to satill be allowed because many of the counter of the startegy, are nonviable in other circunstances (unviable Pokemon, unviable sets on viable Pokemon, centralization about an other otherwise C rank (likely UU) pokemon).

Swagger was banned for being "uncompetitive". Deoxys-N, (Mega) Blaziken, Mgengar, Genesect and (possibly) MLucario are banned because they are noncompetitive. Some Ubers are more broken for being 100% broken and not for being uncompetitive.

Baton pass fits more the "uncompettiive aspect" that the pure "broken" aspect.

 

[Ramplestilskin]

For what it's worth, I'm also referring to Full BP chains. (Man, that's a clunky name for them - how about we call em BP Abuse?) And I agree that 3 is probably the better limit than 4 BP users.

Limiting BP Abuse teams to only 3 BP users means they have to make a hard choice on who to bring. Scolipede and Espeon are solid locks, but then they have to choose between Sylveon for the Hyper Voice, Tankiness, Clericness, and Fairy typing, Smeargle for the Spore/Dark Void, Ingrain, and Quiver Dance, or Zapdos for the ability to counter the top offensive threats of OU who can actually threaten Scolipede and Espeon past their Subs/Boosts. That also means they won't have answers for 90% of the threats in OU anymore.

If Swagplay was the team that had only one strategy, but that strategy beat everyone else, BP Abuse is currently the team that has a counter for everything, and a counter for the counter you brought. Ultimately this means both teams are so boring and repetitive to both play with and play against - they just also happen to keep on fucking winning against all other strategies too.

Ok, so let's repeat what I've already said. I support the fact that with only 3 BP users, BP playstyle is NO LONGER VIABLE
Let's take a closer look at your propositions, arguing a little bit more than in my first post (and I'm also interested in what you meant by Clericness as Sylveon's movepool is hyper voice-CM-Sub-BP(-Stored power))
Scolipede+Espeon+Sylveon : if Aegislash runs Iron Head or Flash Cannon, you can't do much against him. Bisharp can win if you misplay, but generally Sylveon is enough to check him. Charizard-X can DD on your Scolipede and make it an easy win if he plays well. Charizard-Y is very annoying, you can manage to stall him with Sylveon but that's hard. Deoxys-D can play around with seismic toss, however he usually runs a no-attack set with red card which can totally stop your strategy. Deoxys-S has some good match up with some sets and bad match up with others, but I don't know him very well so I can't say much. I think I don't have much to say about Thundurus-I. There are all S-rank mons and 60% of them can potentially beat this BP. If I take all the A-ranked, I think about 40% of the mons also have good match up against these only 3 BP users (more or less). You know what that means ? That your BP team isn't viable. That's all.
I can continue with the Scolipede+Espeon+Smeargle core : if you take a closer look, you'll see that a great number of common

threat can get through this core.
The same goes for Zapdos or Vaporeon, as the only one able to rack up Special Boost will be Sylveon, and a great special pressure will take him down.
You'll certainly argue that I didn't take the time to develop which mons can check Smeargle or Zapdos core, but the fact is that I really think Sylveon would be the best, and surely many people think so. If the best is not viable, why should the other ones be?

Now, I can still explain why Jukain' replays (those one) prove nothing (I've already said it before), but I hope you have enough skill to understand which mistakes made the opponent of BP lose (for the last replay, I really consider that it's not a BP broken victory, just look at the number of healthy mons in each team at the end of the battle). If you don't, I'll have to repost :(

Replay 1 (win vs Fly spam HO)
Replay 2 (win vs Fly spam offense)
Replay 3 (win vs Deo-D offense with Mega Manectric and Keldeo)

In the case you didn't understand it, I'm in favor of ALLOWING 4BP USERS per team. I can really understand why you're so eager to kill it and lower to 3 BP users, and if it can avoid some inappropriate measure like BP clause or ban Espeon/Scolipede I will advocate for it (because you have 3 mons left after all).

 

[Albacore]

I'd just like to point out that limiting BP to 3 users does not kill the playstyle or make it unvaible. At all. I've tried it, and it's actually really good, maybe even to the point of being broken too. What a limit of 3 users basically does is force BP teams to become linear instead of cyclical, basically making them pack a recipient. And it really works. After only a few boosts, Victini or Gardevoir can sweep very easily. A cap of 3 essentially turns BP into a slightly different, heathier, and overall better (in my opinion) playstyle. It's certainly more interesting since it leaves a lot of space for strategy, and the 2 other Pokemon (not counting the sweeper), while not mattering nearly as much as the 4 chain members, can decide what counters the team and what doesn't. BP teams with 3 users also has an actual battle plan that depends on what the opposing team has, unlike full BP which strategy is pretty much always leading with Scoliopede and blindly boosting. BP with 3 users is a lot less reliant on brute force and not caring about what the opposing team has.

BP chains with 3 users are still quite hard to break, though : Stall can hardly get past them, and although it's not too hard to force the chain to break if you're a competent player, it does require a lot of offensive presence and specific Pokemon such as Talonflame and Volcarona to do so. It still has a limited number of weaknesses, and those weaknesses are relatively easy to cover since they pretty much limit themselves to certain offensive types such as Flying and Fire.

A limit of 2 BP users wouldn't kill the playstyle so much as remove most of its bulk, forcing chains to be broken far more often. You can still pass boosts relatively easily with Scoliopede and Espeon, and although you can't take repeated hits, once you take out major threats with the rest of the team, it isn't too hard to sweep. Although it has an inherent advantage against Stall, it can beat it, and the matchup-based element is pretty much completely removed. I honestly prefer a cap of 2 over one of 3 at the moment. But neither would kill BP teams, just turn an entire team structure into a core.

Punchshroom's proposal, while interesting, does completely kill BP teams, which is why I'm not really a fan of it. Not having Espeon means losing the safe passing aspect that makes BP teams interesting. You're basically forcing Scoliopede to pass offensive boosts over defensive boosts, and there's a world of difference between offensive passing and defensive passing.