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

[Soul Fly]

Smogon bans uncompetitive/broken Pokemon, regardless of their other sets or niches. They also avoid complex bans at all costs, and instead bans individual Pokemon. (e.g. Mega Gengar [not Shadow Tag], Blaziken [not Speed Boost].)

Huh? What are you talking about? That's obvious. Simple bans are already out of the window.

Scolipede + Baton Pass is ALREADY a complex ban to begin with. And your examples only aid my statement.

I do wish people would at least do some preliminary reading before firing off machine gun replies, parroting half assed stuff out of context.

 

[Over Zealous]

Huh? What are you talking about? That's obvious. Simple bans are already out of the window.

Scolipede + Baton Pass is ALREADY a complex ban to begin with. And your examples only aid my statement.

I do wish people would at least do some preliminary reading before firing off machine gun replies, parroting half assed stuff out of context.

Huh?? We are deciding how to nerf Baton Pass - no suggestions are "out of the window".

I never advocated a complex ban, and in fact, a complex ban will only be issued if it's absolutely necessary. I advocate the direct ban of Scolipede.

I do wish people would do some prelimary reading and studying as well; if you actually read the thread, you'd know me from the beginning, and a casual poster of this thread. It's also good to actually read my posts instead of misinterpreting. (When did I ever advocate the ban of Scolipede + Baton Pass?)

 

[Pastlebox]

You know that big *** list you made of counters? Every single one except Trick Room has already been discussed, and Trick Room doesn't exactly need discussion.

Sorry about that, with how long the post was I did read quite alot of it, however I thought it might be good to put a big summary that might help to see the exact cause of the issue. Since It was my first post, I thought it best to show that I knew what I was talking about.

-- "best things against Baton Pass (please note that I use Ninjask here because Scolipede’s bulk will generally resist most of the below tactics)"
Since we're now talking about Scolipede, I'd like to think that I at least helped slightly :)

 

[Liarliarpantsonfire]

The only way we're going to be able to determine whether to set the limit at 3 or 4 Pokemon is by having a Suspect Test. At the moment, it's just people speculating about how a BP team would work with 3 or 4 passers, with no creditable evidence (replays don't count). If you've already decided what we're going to do, then there's no real point of this thread staying open.

I don't have to speculate to see that Baton Pass teams will die with only three Baton Pass users. I already said this in a previous post, but Baton Pass teams need every single member to be able to respond to the opponents pokemon, because every member serves an important purpose. Mr. Mime is crucial if you want to get past Perish Song users and is one of the few good answers to Volcarona thanks to Soundproof + Encore together with great special bulk while being able to use both Calm Mind and Barrier, and it has access to Encore to stop setup sweepers. Vaporeon is needed to handle the majority of physical attackers with Acid Armor, it's the only good Baton Passing phazer besides Zapdos and serves as a bulky Water in general. Zapdos is needed if you don't want to lose to Mega Pinsir, and it's an excellent backup sweeper. I can't stress the latter enough, as Espeon can't sweep most teams on its own. If you limit BP teams to three Baton Pass users then you're limited to the bare essentials (Scolipede, Espeon and Mr. Mime), without having a usable Baton Pass team. It can never work, there's no speculation required to figure this one out, and definitely not a Suspect test.

 

[Albacore]

I don't have to speculate to see that Baton Pass teams will die with only three Baton Pass users. I already said this in a previous post, but Baton Pass teams need every single member to be able to respond to the opponents pokemon, because every member serves an important purpose. Mr. Mime is crucial if you want to get past Perish Song users and is one of the few good answers to Volcarona thanks to Soundproof + Encore together with great special bulk while being able to use both Calm Mind and Barrier, and it has access to Encore to stop setup sweepers. Vaporeon is needed to handle the majority of physical attackers with Acid Armor, it's the only good Baton Passing phazer besides Zapdos and serves as a bulky Water in general. Zapdos is needed if you don't want to lose to Mega Pinsir, and it's an excellent backup sweeper. I can't stress the latter enough, as Espeon can't sweep most teams on its own. If you limit BP teams to three Baton Pass users then you're limited to the bare essentials (Scolipede, Espeon and Mr. Mime), without having a usable Baton Pass team. It can never work, there's no speculation required to figure this one out, and definitely not a Suspect test.

Wow, there is so much wrong in this post I don't even know where to begin.

Mr Mime? Really? Since when is Mr Mime one of the bare essentials of BP teams? Mr Mime is by far the most dispensable member of the standard BP team. Perish song is very rare in OU, and Volcarona is not only quite uncommon, but Sylveon also deals with it decently. Mr. Mime is definitely not the only answer BP has to it. In fact, the only reason to use Mr Mime on BP teams if if you're paranoid about Perish Song. On most BP matches I've seen, Mr Mime is just used as death fodder.

Zapdos is only there for Pinsir and Talonflame which can be dealt with with, you know, other team members! Why does everybody assume that BP with 3 users is just a team of Scolopede, Espeon and either Sylveon and Vaporeon (or in this case lol Mr. Mime)?

BP with 3 users is viable, it works, and I know this because I've tested it. I therefore know far more about BP teams with 3 users than you do. How on earth can you call a playstyle unviable without even trying it out? And how can you even say that we shouldn't even consider the possibility of that playstyle being viable? If we don't test things, we cannot move forward. Fortunately, we have already tested BP with 3 users, and we already know for a fact that it is very viable indeed, so we should probably move on to discussing whether it is broken or not.

 

[Aquaslash]

so we should probably move on to discussing whether it is broken or not.

Shouldn't you be testing on 4 then? Cause if 4 is "broken" then you bring it down to 3 and 3's the lowest it can go without killing it.

Shoot, can you even consider 3 mons a "baton pass team"? That sounds like "3 guys trying to support a dangerous ass sweeper."

 

[Ninja Charizard]

3 or 4, hm...

Well, quoting a few posts I've seem in this thread and drawing my own conclusions, it seems the standard BP team can be divided on that structure:

Scolipede: speed passer + backup defense booster
Espeon: anti-taunt + anti-phaser + sweeper + backup Sp. def booster
Sylveon: Sp. Def booster + special wall + backup sweeper
Vaporeon: defense booster + physical wall (backup if Zapdos is already in the team)
Smeargle: panic button (with spore and encore) + backup anti-phaser (with ingrain)
Mr. Mime: anti-perish song + backup Sp. Def booster + backup anti-phaser
Zapdos: physical wall (dunno what else)

So what matters for the bp team is whether all these functions are fulfilled, with extra pokemon being backup. But the essential functions are: speed booster, def booster, Sp. Def booster, anti-taunt, anti-phaser, physical wall, special wall, and sweeper. As you can notice, Smeargle and Mr. Mime are just bonuses to the team, acting as either backup, or situational panic buttons against unpredicted counters. Zapdos does the job of being a premier physical wall against pokemon who would threat the team otherwise, mostly Talonflame and Pinsir (which is also the reason why special attackers have been recommended so much in this thread, there isn't a special wall in the standard bp team as effective as Zapdos is a physical one). So the other 4 mons make the essential build of a bp team, fulfilling all the functions described above. Sweeper is an essential function, but it does not require bp on the same set to work, so I've not bolded it.

So a team with limited pokemon would have 2 groups: the baton pass group, consisting of 3 or 4 pokemon who must be able to fulfill all of the jobs in bold while using baton pass, and the cleaning group, a group of pokemon who would be dedicated to removing counters so the baton pass team could function, or do the inverse, sweeping the opposing team after the bp team is used for wall breaking, or even receiving boosts to help in the sweeping. Those would include Zapdos, and possibily a special wall (chansey comes to mind), maybe a third wall, or a sweeper without baton pass. In this way, a limited baton pass team could focus on the removal of counters, but it would have to wait until these counters were properly removed before starting the chain, in which case the chain would be sort of a win condition.

But for that to be possible, all the functions described above MUST be present in pokemon with baton pass on the same set. So the question it: can it be done with 3 pokemon? Maybe a core of Scolipede + Espeon + Sylveon could work, but that would place all the pressure of raising defense on Scolipede, which isn't a bulky pokemon by itself. A bp team with 3 pokemon might be viable, but there is doubt if it would be competitive. A team of 4 pokemon, on the other hand, would probably still be competitive, and require more thought on team building and less auto pilot than a 6 man bp team, which is kind of a positive thing. But would it be competitive to the point of being broken? That's what needs to be discussed.

My suggestion: either do a suspect test or, if that is not desirable, limit bp teams to 4, and wait a few months. If after that they are still being a trouble to the metagame, limit them to 3 and call it a day.

 

[Liarliarpantsonfire]

Wow, there is so much wrong in this post I don't even know where to begin.

Mr Mime? Really? Since when is Mr Mime one of the "bare essentials" of BP teams? Mr Mime is by far the most dispensable member of the standard BP team. Perish song is very rare in OU, and Volcarona is not only quite uncommon, but also deals with Mr. Mime a lot more easily than it does with, say Sylveon.

Zapdos is only there for Pinsir and Talonflame which can be dealt with with, you know, other team members! Why does everybody assume that BP with 3 users is just a team of Scolopede, Espeon and either Sylveon and Vaporeon (or in this case lol Mr. Mime)?

BP with 3 users is viable, it works, and I know this because I've tested it. I therefore know far more about BP teams with 3 users than you do. How on earth can you call a playstyle unviable without even trying it out? And how can you even say that we shouldn't even consider the possibility of that playstyle being viable? If we don't test things, we cannot move forward. Fortunately, we have already tested BP with 3 users, and we already know for a fact that it is very viable indeed, so we should probably move on to discussing whether it is broken or not.

I have been using Baton Pass since gen 4 up to gen 6... I've played well over 600 matches and counting. So before you talk big because you "tested" a playstyle, keep in mind that there are people out there that have way more experience than you.

Baton Pass teams with three Baton Passers are not viable. Ofcourse you can use another member besides Zapdos for Mega Pinsir or Talonflame. The problem is that you can't start a chain before those threats are taken out, meaning 3 out of your 6 members are essentially dead weight until you do so. That is not viable.

And if you don't get that Mr. Mime is required on a full Baton Pass team, then I don't see the point arguing any further really. Sylveon can't do anything to Volcarona, Mr. Mime can at least Encore it into Quiver Dance after which Vaporeon can Roar it out. I mean if you have any arguments that make sense I'll reply to them, but please don't call people out saying their post is wrong and that they have no experience when you don't even know them and have nothing valid to say. Good day sir.

 

[Albacore]

Shouldn't you be testing on 4 then? Cause if 4 is "broken" then you bring it down to 3 and 3's the lowest it can go without killing it.

Honestly, I think testing 4 BP users is a waste of time, since it's almost certainly still broken. Still, we won't lose anything from doing it, so that's probably a good idea.

As for 3 being the lowest you can go without killing the playstyle, I don't think that's true. A team with just Scoliopede and Espeon as BP users could still be viable and still qualifies as a BP team, although it is very frail compared to standard BP teams. I have yet to test it, though, so maybe it doesn't work, in which case we should go for a cap of 3. But I'm pretty certain a cap of 4 is not enough.

 

[aVocado]

I can say out of personal experience that 4 baton passers is enough for a full, broken chain. You have Scolipede for Speed/Def, Espeon for CM/sweeping with Stored Power, Sylveon for back-up sweeping with Hyper Voice in case of dark types and maybe CM passing, and.. Actually, that's literally all you need. Your only hope of killing this core is through using things like Talonflame or strong special attackers turn 1 against Scolipede, which any smart player can see from a mile away and act accordingly. And "strong special attackers" can be dealt with by Sylveon, to an extent.

I often found myself only using Scolipede, Espeon and Sylveon in the full BP team I used, which consisted of Scolipede/Smeargle/Mime/Sylveon/Vaporeon/Espeon. Vaporeon's only job was emergency def boosts, Mime was encore support/blocks d.tail and p.song while passing CM/sub, Smeargle had Ingrain, and the other 3 were the backbone and the gang that got the job done.

 

[Ninja Charizard]

Honestly, I think testing 4 BP users is a waste of time, since it's almost certainly still broken. Still, we won't lose anything from doing it, so that's probably a good idea.

As for 3 being the lowest you can go without killing the playstyle, I don't think that's true. A team with just Scoliopede and Espeon as BP users could still be viable and still qualifies as a BP team, although it is very frail compared to standard BP teams. I have yet to test it, though, so maybe it doesn't work, in which case we should go for a cap of 3. But I'm pretty certain a cap of 4 is not enough.

2 is barely a bp team at all. If working under such a restriction, I'd just remove Espeon and stick to Scolipede for quick-passing. The thing about bp chains is that they need to last, they need some sort of bulk so that they won't die too fast while getting the boosts, which is why Sylveon and Vaporeon are used. The less pokemon with bp in the team, the more easily it will go down to the old "hit it hard from the start" strategy.

I think there is a lot of panicking going on this thread. I don't see a 3 man bp team being a broken threat at all. Unless people are really trying to lose against bp and refusing to attack them from the start, instead wasting turns laying hazards or something.

 

[Aquaslash]

Sylveon can't do anything to Volcarona,

252+ SpA Volcarona Fiery Dance vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Sylveon: 90-106 (22.8 - 26.9%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Volcarona Hidden Power Steel vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Sylveon: 90-106 (22.8 - 26.9%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

Too bad Volcarona can't do jack to Sylveon in return. He needs three Quiver Dances to guarantee a 2HKO on an unboosted Specially Defensive Sylveon. Even if he and Sylveon get into a boosting war, he still loses, because Sylveon will boost the very stat he's trying to hit, which will bring him back to square 1. Meanwhile, all Sylveon has to do is have a coverage move (which can either be stored power, or a SE Hidden Power) and he's toast.

 

[Liarliarpantsonfire]

252+ SpA Volcarona Fiery Dance vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Sylveon: 90-106 (22.8 - 26.9%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Volcarona Hidden Power Steel vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Sylveon: 90-106 (22.8 - 26.9%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

Too bad Volcarona can't do jack to Sylveon in return. He needs three Quiver Dances to guarantee a 2HKO on an unboosted Specially Defensive Sylveon. Even if he and Sylveon get into a boosting war, he still loses, because Sylveon will boost the very stat he's trying to hit, which will bring him back to square 1. Meanwhile, all Sylveon has to do is have a coverage move (which can either be stored power, or a SE Hidden Power) and he's toast.

First of all, thanks for replying to my whole post and not taking words out of their context. [/sarcasm] Secondly, my point was that Mr. Mime is mandatory on full Baton Pass teams because otherwise Perish Song users defeat you every single time without exception. It's also the only insurance against Roar besides Espeon, as well as the only good Encore user. Sylveon without a coverage move doesn't beat Volcarona either, and the mono-attacking set with Substitute is still the most used so you're kinda shooting yourself in the foot there. Did I mention Sylveon has no recovery besides Leftovers? I could go even further and point out how you picked the weakest possible attack coming from Volcarona to prove your point. Let's say you pass into Sylveon against this Volcarona:

+1 252+ SpA Volcarona Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Sylveon: 183-216 (46.4 - 54.8%) -- 9.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Good luck with your Calm Mind war then, and I'm not even factoring in Life Orb... It's also a clean sweep after Sylveon dies, don't need to explain that I'm sure. And lastly, I'm not sure which SE Hidden Power you are talking about. Flying, Rock, Water possibly? The HP Steel calc also leaves me kinda confused, is that standard on Volcarona maybe? Or does it hit harder than Fiery Dance, are you trying to prove a point?

 

[BrellowBran]

That replay was bad because your opponent was bad. The turn he want for Pursuit on Espeon (which I don't understand why the fuck he even did that, Knock Off would have destroyed Scolipede even if Espeon switched), he should have went for Knock Off, which would have likely forced Espeon into a range where it couldn't set up a sub, and thus easy enough to take out with Sucker Punch. All that replay proves is that your opponent knows how to choke. Espeon and Scolipede aren't the issue, it's the entire chain that is. Freaking limit it to 3 users and we're done here.

The Bisharp's Knockoff spam doesn't always work. When an Espeon faces a Bisharp, a battle of wits and pure luck begins. Here are some possible scenerios that can happen when a Boosted Espeon faces Bisharp. Lets assume Boosted Espeon has less than 30% of its health left, and Bisharp is at full health.

Scenerio 1: Boosted Espeon uses substitute. Bisharp uses suckerpunch. Next turn, Espeon can score a free hit on Bisharp and get a little bit of leftovers recovery.

Scenerio 2: Boosted Espeon uses substitute. Bisharp uses knockoff. Next turn, Espeon would be too weak to create another substitute. It must either flee (baton pass) or fight. If it chooses to fight, Bisharp would either use suckerpunch, killing Espeon, or Knockoff, obliterating the next pokemon switching in.

Scenerio 3: Boosted Espeon says #yolo and blasts Bisharp with HP fighting. Either the Bisharp uses Suckerpunch and kills Espeon or Espeon predicts the knockoff and kills Bisharp with HP Fighting. I prefer scenerio 3 because it gives you a 50/50 chance of killing someone that has type advantage over you.

Mega-Heracross, Thundurus and Bisharp Vs 2BP rest filler team
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-114246724

Another case when Bisharp's knockoff spam fails lol
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-114284530

My troll team Vs a Baton Pass team
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-114298466

 

[jbtc10]

First of all, thanks for replying to my whole post and not taking words out of their context. [/sarcasm] Secondly, my point was that Mr. Mime is mandatory on full Baton Pass teams because otherwise Perish Song users defeat you every single time without exception. It's also the only insurance against Roar besides Espeon, as well as the only good Encore user. Sylveon without a coverage move doesn't beat Volcarona either, and the mono-attacking set with Substitute is still the most used so you're kinda shooting yourself in the foot there. Did I mention Sylveon has no recovery besides Leftovers? I could go even further and point out how you picked the weakest possible attack coming from Volcarona to prove your point. Let's say you pass into Sylveon against this Volcarona:

Let's get one thing out of the way: Mr. Mime is not mandatory on BP teams. Perish Song? Who on earth uses that in OU? Perish Song is in many ways worse than Haze, since it still gives them 3 turns to boost and then fire off a powerful blow (or just attack normally), which they can rinse and repeat, and it's also less effective than Haze in the later stages of the game if they have already gotten boosts up, since they still get those 3 turns to use the boosts to harm your team rather than losing them straight away. Mime's main niches are Encore and stopping random things like Hyper Voices from the likes of Gardevoir and Specs Sylveon (which are both also uncommon and can be dealt with by other means, albeit not as well). Those niches can pop up occasionally, but are in no way necessary whatsoever and usually have next to no relevance against the majority of match-ups in which case he becomes eclipsed by other BP users.

 

[Aquaslash]

First of all, thanks for replying to my whole post and not taking words out of their context. [/sarcasm] Secondly, my point was that Mr. Mime is mandatory on full Baton Pass teams because otherwise Perish Song users defeat you every single time without exception. It's also the only insurance against Roar besides Espeon, as well as the only good Encore user. Sylveon without a coverage move doesn't beat Volcarona either, and the mono-attacking set with Substitute is still the most used so you're kinda shooting yourself in the foot there. Did I mention Sylveon has no recovery besides Leftovers? I could go even further and point out how you picked the weakest possible attack coming from Volcarona to prove your point. Let's say you pass into Sylveon against this Volcarona:

+1 252+ SpA Volcarona Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Sylveon: 183-216 (46.4 - 54.8%) -- 9.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Good luck with your Calm Mind war then, and I'm not even factoring in Life Orb... It's also a clean sweep after Sylveon dies, don't need to explain that I'm sure. And lastly, I'm not sure which SE Hidden Power you are talking about. Flying, Rock, Water possibly? The HP Steel calc also leaves me kinda confused, is that standard on Volcarona maybe? Or does it hit harder than Fiery Dance, are you trying to prove a point?

I picked the strongest attack against Sylveon of his most common moves. I was also going to say that Volc wasn't doing anything without a SE Hidden power, but then I calc'd one, and it was barely (like 0.0001 or something) stronger than Fiery Dance, which is Volcarona's most common fire stab. The Hidden Power for Sylveon in this case is of course, Rock which 2HKOs Volc regardless. In fact, it'll likely kill Volc before he can spam Fire Blast because unless Volc jumped in at turn 1 and immediately began boosting, the BP team will have speed advantage. Volcarona is a threat, yes. But not an insurmountable one that requires Mr. Mime.

Speaking of the Mime! You'll generally find perish song on 24% of Politoed and 13% of Celebi. Zapdos and Jolteon cleanly 2HKO Politoed with Thunderbolt and Zapdos damn near OHKOs with Thunder. Celebi is worked over by any Scolipede that's running Megahorn. There's also what the person who just ninja'd me said in that those 3 turns can be murder time for your team.

 

[Jukain]

The Bisharp's Knockoff spam doesn't always work. When an Espeon faces a Bisharp, a battle of wits and pure luck begins. Here are some possible scenerios that can happen when a Boosted Espeon faces Bisharp. Lets assume Boosted Espeon has less than 30% of its health left, and Bisharp is at full health.

Scenerio 1: Boosted Espeon uses substitute. Bisharp uses suckerpunch. Next turn, Espeon can score a free hit on Bisharp and get a little bit of leftovers recovery.

Scenerio 2: Boosted Espeon uses substitute. Bisharp uses knockoff. Next turn, Espeon would be too weak to create another substitute. It must either flee (baton pass) or fight. If it chooses to fight, Bisharp would either use suckerpunch, killing Espeon, or Knockoff, obliterating the next pokemon switching in.

Scenerio 3: Boosted Espeon says #yolo and blasts Bisharp with HP fighting. Either the Bisharp uses Suckerpunch and kills Espeon or Espeon predicts the knockoff and kills Bisharp with HP Fighting. I prefer scenerio 3 because it gives you a 50/50 chance of killing someone that has type advantage over you.

Mega-Heracross, Thundurus and Bisharp Vs 2BP rest filler team
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-114246724

Your opp played like garbage. Switch to Lando on Scoli and spam Earth Power, and he had it won. That isn't really a good replay.

 

[WebBowser]

+1 4 SpA Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Deoxys-D: 136-162 (44.7 - 53.2%) -- 31.3% chance to 2HKO
+2 252 SpA Espeon Stored Power (260 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Deoxys-D: 281-331 (92.4 - 108.8%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
I don't know if that is 'somewhat well', Espeon with 12 boosts (+4 Def&Speed with 2 CM's, probably not the hardest to get) and Sylveon at +1 pose pretty good threats to Deo-D. Scolipede doesn't need any boosts to outspeed, and if it passes +1 speed to Espeon on taunt then you've got a decent trouble on your hands, since it can begin setting up CM. Also, +1 smeargle outspeeds so it can spore you if they pass on a predicted Seismic Toss.

Seismic Toss however does allow it to take on BP subs, since most of them are less than 100HP. So I guess I can see it as a troublesome pokemon for BP to face, but probably not all that hard to work around if it comes in a bit too late.

Is phys defensive deo-d standard? I always figured with that nasty knock off and pursuit weakness deo-d would run specially defensive and just leave the phys tanking for someone else.

Regardless, I still say that the prediction war of deo-d vs BP is still heavily in deo-d's favor, for the following reasons.

1. You only need to land taunt once to stop the chain. One bad mispredict on the opponent's side means a broken chain.

2. An espeon with few to no boosts cannot stay in on deo-d, taunted or otherwise. Espeon is cleanly 4hko'd by s-toss, and does jack squat with stored power (seriously, if you let them boost for 6-ish turns to hit +6 speed and +6 defense without landing a taunt, you dun goofed, simple as that). If espeon tries to setup, it WILL take hits, and it cannot boost enough to threaten out deo-d before deo-d kills it. Given that morning sun espeon is rare-ish(4-MSS is BPs worst enemy), that damage is likely going to stay, making it all the harder for the opponent to swap in espeon on a predicted taunt.

3. Sylveon can be troublesome, but if sylveon uses hyper voice, you can taunt it, because a sylveon using hyper voice is a sylveon not swapping to espeon. Once taunted, just swap in your team's sylveon counter and force it out (every team should have something that can swap into +1 sylv and threaten it out)

4. Sleep powder and spore are the reasons why every team should have sleep fodder on it. Yes, smeargle forces deo-d to switch (unless you are running magic coat, which is not unheard of, but lets ignore that for a minute), but if you swapped in say, mega-venu, he forces a switch too (due to risk of leech seed or sleep powder). Also, if smeargle comes in on a predicted s-toss, that means sash is broken and is unlikely to come back via healing (more relevant to offensive teams then defensive, but relevant nonetheless).

So yes, I consider deo-d to be able to take on BP "somewhat well". He's not 6-0ing the BP team unless you run a moveset dedicated to beating BP (and even then it's not guaranteed), but with a relatively small amount of team support (sleep fodder + sylveon swap in, which happens to be two roles that have a shocking amount of overlap), he can force a favorable matchup vs BP.

 

[TheDeathJester]

I have decided to revisit this topic as I feel that my opinion of what should be done about baton pass has changed significantly recently. I believe that a blanket ban is more appropriate as it is often very frustrating to face and I find it to be too easy to exploit myself. I don't use it myself in an effort to make the metagame a more enjoyable experience not just for me but also for the people on Showdown who battle me. Happy battling everyone! :)

 

[Aquaslash]

I have decided to revisit this topic as I feel that my opinion of what should be done about baton pass has changed significantly recently. I believe that a blanket ban is more appropriate as it is often very frustrating to face and I find it to be too easy to exploit myself. I don't use it myself in an effort to make the metagame a more enjoyable experience not just for me but also for the people on Showdown who battle me. Happy battling everyone! :)

It has been explicitly said that a blanket Baton Pass ban is not on the table.

 

[Joycdonnell]

Specially Defensive Ferrothorn (& company) saved my life in this battle again a BP team :3

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-113732787

(Mr. Mime was using HP Fire or HP fighting?)

 

[Ramplestilskin]

We're attempting to make Baton Pass manageable, not completely unviable. If we banned Magic Bounce, Ingrain and Stored Power we might as well ban the strategy as a whole. I'm conviced that the best solution is to limit the use of the move Baton Pass to a given number of Pokémon on each team. What I'm really not sure about is whether that number should be 3 or 4.

As it is the only thing left to choose, let's try 4 mons, and if we see it's not enough to nerf them then we'll go to 3. As long as people keep arguing for others things than 3 or 4 mons in useless posts (indeed these posts are useless because moderators decide to nerf the number of BP users) we won't go anywhere.
And if people REALLY want to continue this debate because they think testing 4 BP mons is a lost of time, then restrict it to 3, after all with three BP mons it is nearly impossible to auto-win with BP and teambuilding/skill in battle will be very important, so it can not be a bad solution.

 

[TheGreatKoala]

I find people's issues with Magic Bounce is that they are probably complaining because their idiotic Prankster Sabeleye is useless against it and, let's be honest here, if you use entry hazards or status stuff while your opponent has a Magic Bounce user alive, that is your fault, not the opponent's.

Surely a counter to Espeon would be luring your opponent into bringing it into the battle, and then nailing it with 2 STABs. Example:

You lead with anything, I lead with Scarf Galvantula
I am obviously doing sticky web, so you switch in Espeon.
Instead I do Bug Buzz, because your move was so obvious.

How's Espeon looking now?

 

[TeraVolt]

I find people's issues with Magic Bounce is that they are probably complaining because their idiotic Prankster Sabeleye is useless against it and, let's be honest here, if you use entry hazards or status stuff while your opponent has a Magic Bounce user alive, that is your fault, not the opponent's.

Surely a counter to Espeon would be luring your opponent into bringing it into the battle, and then nailing it with 2 STABs. Example:

You lead with anything, I lead with Scarf Galvantula
I am obviously doing sticky web, so you switch in Espeon.
Instead I do Bug Buzz, because your move was so obvious.

How's Espeon looking now?

Ooor... It could be that Magic Bounce negates nearly everything that can be used to stop BP teams besides Haze, Perish Song, Dragon Tail and Circle Throw; all of which are rarely used...?

In that respect: Espeon is pretty much still essential to BP teams...

Nobody is having trouble with Espeon outside of BP chains; Magic Bounce or not.

 

[LT. SURGE111]

I think 4 mons would be acceptable to drop BP to. This allows the metagame to be somewhat more stable, as well as forcing the BP users to be slightly more creative with their team building.