BH BH7 Suspect #6: Illusion - Voter ID & Information

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Storm Eagle

Banned deucer.
I just want to point out that despite what the out of context screenshot Storm Eagle shared might make you think, the OM discord isn't a circlejerk where allegedly "good" players mass collaborate on a ban. We welcome different opinions and love to discuss in a more casual setting.
The OM Discord is something better than that. Many players can gather there to build new teams and to discuss anything about BH, be it their team or advice on the metagame in general. I don't believe the screenshot was out of context; I wanted to show that the opinions are generally pro-ban.

Just because I disagree on something does not mean others have to think the same way. I ideally make my arguments because I believe they would make the meta more healthy and less intimidating for newcomers. I've been around BH for quite a while, but for the longest time I was just a lurker. I thought I would engage with the community for once and participate in a Suspect Test. I ideally want Illusion banned because I genuinely believe it is uncompetitive and always has been, even though the community as a whole seems to be more annoyed with Shedinja and Imposter.

I refute the arguments because I feel some of them have one-sided or biased arguments and that I hope that in doing so they may reconsider their Do Not Ban vote. But even though there may be a 'bad argument', there's no such thing as a 'bad opinion'. The voters can do what they want as they earned their vote, however I did respond in hopes that they would consider voting Ban because I believed the ability was broken and uncompetitive.
 

a loser

I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me?
is a Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Community Contributor Alumnus
Here are some examples of illusion both working and not working. These are high ladder games against good players and the use of illusion does make an impact on each game, but does not seem to impact it in an uncompetitive way (IMO). Also, no use of illusion in these games leads to either player being at an unfair advantage in the remainder of the battle. You all can see what you think.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-745921499 - Here's an example of a competent player using Illusion but never getting the payoff. Thanks to weather (of their own setting actually) and spreading of status, it was easy to read the illusion each time it came onto the field.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-755576023 - Here's another example of illusion from a good player. Main illusion action is turn 34 (although I use Pdon with illusion a few turns before). His illusion could have been recognized had I paid better attention to the health bar, but ultimately wasn't major to the match as I didn't need Chansey as much with Kyu-W gone.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-758627369 - Here it looks like illusion is going to get me the win earlier on. It helps me KO 2 of their walls. While these were big moments, ultimately I lost in a 250+ turn stall. So even though illusion gets a kill, or 2 in this game, the opponent still has 4 mons to work with.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-745510543 - Here a well known illusion user gets a kill at turn 36 thanks to some mind games illusion leads to. Things panned out to have both Kyu-W and MMX at full health somehow. After that, Illusion did get some kills but mainly because of strategic sacking on my part (to keep Diancie alive as a wincon). Also, the hazards toward the end told me Audino was MMX.
 
I refute the arguments because I feel some of them have one-sided or biased arguments and that I hope that in doing so they may reconsider their Do Not Ban vote. But even though there may be a 'bad argument', there's no such thing as a 'bad opinion'. The voters can do what they want as they earned their vote, however I did respond in hopes that they would consider voting Ban because I believed the ability was broken and uncompetitive.
TL:DR; I yell my opinion at people because I think my opinion is right.

That's... a really outdated internet arguing ideology that doesn't work anymore, if it ever has.
 

anaconja

long day at job
is a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributor
TL:DR; I yell my opinion at people because I think my opinion is right.

That's... a really outdated internet arguing ideology that doesn't work anymore, if it ever has.
This is a blatant straw man of Storm Eagle and an ad hominem that doesn't really help your argument too much. First of all, of course he would think that his opinion is right, that's the definition of an opinion. However, I don't believe that he is yelling at anti-ban players, he's simply reasoning everything out to try and convince them to see Illusion from a different perspective.

Looking at his previous posts, it's clear that he provides ample evidence for his arguments, including replays, facts about Illusion, and logic that leads to his main argument that Illusion is uncompetitive and should be banned. On the other hand, many anti-ban posts (including yours, no offense) have been solely anecdotal evidence, which, while being important, is only one factor of good credibility.

edit: i realize now that this post is slightly off topic
 

cityscapes

Take care of yourself.
is a Tiering Contributoris a Community Contributor Alumnus
it seems like some people in this thread misunderstood what i meant when i talked about illusion being uncompetitive, so i'll go into it in more detail here.

first of all, let's get into the definition for uncompetitiveness from smogon's official tiering policy:

Uncompetitive - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant.

  • This can be matchup related; think the determination that Baton Pass took the battling skill aspect out of the player's hands and made it overwhelmingly a team matchup issue, where even the best moves made each time by a standard team often were not enough.
  • This can be external factors; think Endless Battle Clause, where the determining factor became internet connection over playing skill.
  • This can be probability management issues; think OHKOs, evasion, or Moody, all of which turned the battle from emphasizing battling skill to emphasizing the result of the RNG more often than not.
now the first of these criteria doesn't really apply for illusion, because it isn't a matchup based thing more than anything else. for example, if you're using ho-oh as your mega diancie switchin, there's functionally no difference between dying to cb illusion mmx photon geyser and dying to head smash from mg diancie matchup-wise. this criterion could apply for some other things in the meta (if people can legitimately get x-1/x-0 records for suspects, there's likely an uncompetitive element in play), but i won't be getting into that here.

the second one doesn't apply much here either. the "bug" that semako mentioned about an illusion mon disguising as multiple different mons during a game isn't a bug at all; if you switch from your active mon to the last mon in your party, your active mon becomes the new last mon (and so the illusion disguise changes, but not at random). keeping track of say illusion full hp ray vs 88% gengar with sr up can be annoying, but this is the fault of ps for not showing rock damage outside of animations, not illusion.

the third one is where we hit the gray area. the weird thing about illusion here compared to the examples given is that that ohko moves, evasion, and moody were all blatantly broken in addition to being uncompetitive, while i have just argued that illusion is not. in fact, i'd argue that this is the first potentially uncompetitive thing bh has suspected that isn't also broken. but of all the criteria, this is the one to go for.

there's definitely an argument to be made that illusion can be legitimately predicted around, because ultimately it isn't a "true 50/50" seeing as the illusion user is usually pressured to make hard reads in the early stages of the game to eliminate key pokemon before illusion stops putting in work. but honestly, i think that the other side is more credible here.

something kinda dumb is that facing illusion isn't a matter of reading the game, it's a matter of reading the player. what i mean by this is that if your opponent brings in their illusion mon and non illusion mon completely at random, you really have no better option than to risk the coinflip. and honestly, i think that's just a pretty lame thing to have in the meta.

thanks for reading, as always. disagreement is appreciated.
 
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I never mentioned that as a bug.
The bugs I mentioned (recently) were:
  • Showdown displays wrong pokemon as alive/fainted (reported multiple times in the bug report thread, but as always, it gets ignored)
  • An Illusion pokemon can be disguised as a no longer existing mon such as a regular Groudon after said Groudon already had been out and transformed into Primal Groudon (not reported yet, as someone in the help chat told me that this bug is already known)
 
Regarding predicting illusion, you can also take into account the fact that from the point of view of the opponent, it's usually expected that you do not know there's an illusion mon. By suspecting its presence you might already be playing with more knowledge than your opponent expects you do have, and so be at an advantageous position.
It's a weak argument but it's context worth keeping in mind.
 
tbh I'll say
1 that ability suck without a teambuild entirely made around it which means that specific way to teambuild is flag and that it can't be good by itself with no support
2 illusion is only match-up reliant and might not be always usefull, as any other abilities that offer a boost in it's power/passive recovery/utility might be more often usefull
3 m-kangakhan is a great thing in BH and ban illusion might kill that mon that will just lose the only niche ability it has to set-up (and might be an additionnal fodder for contraries if people start to run stuff like intimidate :s)
 
Friendly reminder that just because this does not seem like as big of an issue as Contrary or a Sleep Clause is not a reason to vote Do Not Ban. If you truly feel those are problems then you can post about them in the Bans thread. We should focus exclusively on Illusion right now and I feel like redirecting the attention towards things that appear more broken at first glance is not something we should do in this thread.

I use Illusion too and I know the ability is broken first-hand. If you need an argument, go ahead and read my initial post on the matter. Illusion can be used to eliminate checks to the thing you are disguising as, as you can use a strong Pokemon like Mega Gengar and you can pick what you disguise as, then you can force the opponent to switch (as no one will stay in on a -Ate Mega Diancie with most Pokemon) and you have a legitimate chance at 2HKOing most things in the tier due to this, and when your opponent's Mega Diancie switch-in is damaged severely, it'll likely just fall to a FakeSpeed combo or a Boomburst and then the odds of winning are on your side.

Contrary is difficult to improof and there are abilities and other means to prevent Sleep. Illusion does not have a drawback at all. It even prevents Imposter from transforming into your Pokemon so it makes for a ridiculously easy improof with Red Orb Groudon.

I strongly believe because illusion counterplays imposter so "perfectly" is why most persons thinks its over powered which is why we are here with this suspeect. If the only way to beat an ability is with imposter or some convoluted improof, then that should be worthy of suspecting not illusion ie contrary.

About you saying it eliminate checks, it doesnt take only illusion to remove checks. a sheer force LO mmx can force out registeel n potentially ohko zygarde or 2kho giratina with ice beam for example or a pixillate diancie with strong coverage moves in V create, z pblades or gigavolt. Winning in BH has always been centered around destroying checks/walls to ensure an "easier" victory by sweeping.

Illusion is a gamble all the time, it may work one time but after the 1st, the opponent will be on their guard. Its only overpowered to persons who like to switch in imposter on everything or rely heavily on "safe" walls.
 

Storm Eagle

Banned deucer.
I strongly believe because illusion counterplays imposter so "perfectly" is why most persons thinks its over powered which is why we are here with this suspeect. If the only way to beat an ability is with imposter or some convoluted improof, then that should be worthy of suspecting not illusion ie contrary.
You know full well Imposter isn't the only reason to use Illusion. It's a primary reason on setup sweepers, but setup sweepers are not consistent of all of the viable Illusion Pokemon. Illusion is still fundamentally an ability which is intended to make your opponent misplay on purpose to get yourself an advantage. That is broken. Why? Because I've said it about fourteen times or more. If you can eliminate a check to one of your wincons through Illusion by forcing your opponent to make a misplay, then your chances of winning skyrocket.

Illusion is a gamble all the time, it may work one time but after the 1st, the opponent will be on their guard. Its only overpowered to persons who like to switch in imposter on everything or rely heavily on "safe" walls.
Just as a fair note, I rarely use Imposter and can immediately recognize Illusions strengths. One turn is all you need to turn the tide, and often times you can make your opponent switch out so it's technically two or three turns even.
 
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Pikachuun

the entire waruda machine

I personally have no strong feelings one way or the other, a well-throughout argument could easily sway me tho as, while i personally haven't run into very many problems with illusion myself (i tend to have a good knack for what could/couldn't be illusion), i understand others do have major problems with it as well as its extremely devastating effects. If push comes to shove, I'd vote towards ban tho, considering how much havoc it's wrought in tournament settings showing that even against skilled players it can largely influence a battle by itself if properly played
 
I just got wondering...
1 Is illusion a splashable ability meaning every mon can use it properly, well every mon can use it, but... it can fit only a single role and isn't good on everything also it require an entire team support and to run 3-4 mons until you get your illusion in which is hard to do

2 Does illusion give an extreme augmentation that allow it to destroy counters and checks to the mon using it, well... it give no boost and counters still counter it but... it allow free outplays, not misplay cause of course in the opponent's head you don't know what's going on, he's probably playing to his best and don't misplay regarding what's on your side... or he could screw you with it's abilities, stuff that won't switch on what you are hiding with illusion could because of it's ability, magic bounce that switch on spore/hazards users and accidentally take a move they are immune to like a banded close combat from MMX, reveal the illusion and the mon that is stuck on last slot that give illusion it's mask. It punish harshly illusion users, after that the only way to keep illusion working is... to switch that mon stuck on last slot on another mon and give you the info about what's the new mask of illusion at the same time, which mean once illusion is broken/enter on battle and use a move it's game over, it won't get any other opportunity to safely get an outplay
 
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