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Clauses in the metagame

I think:

Sleep Clause: I really believe this one should stay as it would be so stupid to see a +6 Speed Breloom Spore everyone to sleep. Also, if this clause is kept in efect it adds more strategy: Which pkmn are you going to put to sleep?

Species Clause: The battle tower in the game enforces this one. That is enough proof for me.

Freeze Clause: Since there is no gaurenteed freeze move, I'd say this one should be abolished. It also goes to show: you have to be a bit lucky to win.

Hax Item Clause: Who thought of this? You think by banning items, people will stop coming up with new strategies? Kudos to whoever invented ParaFlich becuase hax involves strategy to pull off. Yes it is a strategy (abeit an annoying one). So are we just going to ban this becuase we hate being annoyed? I hope not.

OHKO Cluase: This on the other hand should be enforced. With this Dugtrio would be classified as Uber. Baton Passing Lock-on / Mind Reader to it would guarentee a kill with fissure. Then rinse and repeat.

Evasion Clause: This should also be enforced. It may take strategy to pass a +6 evasion to a sweeper (holding the bright powder and maybe having Sand Veil), but it topples the game over. Think about it. How can you stop a Ninjask from passing +6 Evasion and +6 Speed to a sweeper? If you know how, then tell me because I can't find an answer. (Wasn't Wobaffet considered Uber becuase it was considered "broken"? Would Ninjask soon be?)

Clauses that should be enforced: Sleep, Evasion, OHKO, Species
Clauses that should be abolished: Hax Item, Freeze


Those are my opinions. Thank you for taking the time to listen (or read) them
-Marble101
 
Marble101 said:
Think about it. How can you stop a Ninjask from passing +6 Evasion and +6 Speed to a sweeper? If you know how, then tell me because I can't find an answer.
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Use Taunt.

I noticed that some people insist that no one will use DT/Minimize or OHKO because of its poor payoff, and I agree that a purely rational player would not willingly choose to bank his success on a purely luck-based strategy. But not all players are rational, and it would not be competitively healthy to promote a metagame that facilitates less skilled players winning purely by chance. It happens enough already with critical hits, random status, and such.

There's a reason why every Brawl player out there rages at Sakurai for programming tripping into the game.
 
Unholy said:
Use Taunt.

I noticed that some people insist that no one will use DT/Minimize or OHKO because of its poor payoff, and I agree that a purely rational player would not willingly choose to bank his success on a purely luck-based strategy. But not all players are rational, and it would not be competitively healthy to promote a metagame that facilitates less skilled players winning purely by chance. It happens enough already with critical hits, random status, and such.

There's a reason why every Brawl player out there rages at Sakurai for programming tripping into the game.
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Taunt is affected by accuracy. I think evasion clause should be left alone for the same reason that 1hko clause exists. Introducing hax into the game for no good reason is just not fun. The small possibility of an instant win provided by a couple +Evasions passed to a sweeper is just really annoying to deal with.
 
More and more, I see the trend in the competitive community going towards banning things. Nintendo, in its official tournaments, does not have these rules in enforcement, but there is one critical difference between Nintendo's rules and ours that we have to fix before we can really achieve a balanced metagame, rather than a ban-all-dragons metagame.

We need 2v2 to be the main competitive metagame. The game is thoroughly balanced around 2v2, and the moves you mentioned are already balanced in power.

Hax clause - This isn't really even enforced, is it? In 2v2, you have much better odds of killing a pokemon that has a Focus Band, so I hardly see it as an issue.

OHKO clause - All OHKO's are single target, and 2v2 is so offensive anyway, most attacks are OHKO's anyway. Hardly overpowered.

Evasion clause - None of the commonly used perfect accuracy moves are multi-target, so I could see a double-team tag team doing quite well in doubles. But, any pokemon with an evasion move is one moveslot down, and Protect is almost required on every pokemon anyway, so that leaves you with only 2 moves for coverage, 1 if you have to boost to do any good damage.

Sleep Clause - There is only one currently legal pokemon that uses Dark Void, and it is relatively slow. Darkrai, if it was allowed in play, would not be overpowered because of Dark Void, but because of it's massive speed and special attack, since specialized counters would crop up like crazy because it's so frail (Primeape and Honchkrow especially). Plus, Lum and Chesto Berries exist, and one turn is often the game in a 2v2 match.

Freeze Clause - The highest percent chance freeze is 10%, and really that is only as good as a hax item in usefulness. No pokemon relies entirely on the freeze chance of Ice Beam or Blizzard or Ice Fang to win games. If they do, they should change their strategy. Even Serene Grace doesn't make this overpowered, and berries fix it if you are worried about it.

I, for one, cannot wait to finally have a competitive community embrace 2v2 as a real division. It is clear that Nintendo is putting much more effort into balancing it than 1v1. I mean, look at Garchomp, who is banned in 1v1 but would SUCK in 2v2 because all it can really do is Earthquake and Dragon Claw (Outrage is strong, but hits a random target, completely unreliable).
 
Taunt is affected by accuracy. I think evasion clause should be left alone for the same reason that 1hko clause exists. Introducing hax into the game for no good reason is just not fun. The small possibility of an instant win provided by a couple +Evasions passed to a sweeper is just really annoying to deal with.
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As I said, something like Suicune gets +1 in evasiveness, you have to take care of it there. If you miss and it gets a +2, you can kiss victory good bye.

I have a Battle Video of someone stalling Perfectly w/ a Dusknoir. It was bulky enough to get +2, then it used Toxic, got another DT on the switch, Toxic, repeat till all non-steels are poisoned, PP stall/spam Shadow Punch to whats left after you get +3 or more. People like me who get very unlucky, costing battles we would have easily one by Critical hits, or random Flamethrower burn to lesser extents, let alone missing is the main reason for Evasiveness clause.

We need 2v2 to be the main competitive metagame. The game is thoroughly balanced around 2v2, and the moves you mentioned are already balanced in power.
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I do 2v2, and not too many people play it too often, namely for how impossible it is to get a Pokemon w/ max IVs in what you need, let alone Relatively Superior (Nintendo's term for 30-31 in each stat) Pokemon.

After Shoddy 2 comes out (it's already 2 years late) Smogon will create another ban list that will ban all kinds of Random stuff.
 
CBshuckle said:
Evasion Clause is necessary because it is overcentralizing. Forcing every team to carry a machamp/hazer/pokemon with a weak move like aerial ace does not seem like a good idea, because it means every team will have to have like one of about 5 viable pokemon just to not lose to an umbreon or cresselia. You say umbreon isn't that much of a threat, but really, think about it - how much can OHKO it? It double teams while you switch into something that can 2HKO it (assuming not machamp). Well, maybe you hit it and it uses DT again. Then, it uses moonlight and if you miss, which by then you probably will have, you're back where you started except now it has two double teams. DT would easily over-centralize the metagame.
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By contrast, I'm gonna compare this to...Howl...on Arcanine...

Arcanine howls, uses Morning Sun, and now you've got a +1 Arcanine with most/all of its HP. I understand it's not REALLY the same thing, but I don't often see anything past a +1 or +2 unless someone screws up.

+1 evasion turns 100% accuracy moves into 75% accurate, and if you've got something that can OHKO that Umbreon like, say, CB Heracross' Close Combat, or something...you're still in the green for an OHKO.

so, there's Haze to combat it, which I still believe to be a viable option, and I'm gonna say T.Spikes as well. Personally, though, I say this at least merits testing.
 
+1 evasion turns 100% accuracy moves into 75% accurate, and if you've got something that can OHKO that Umbreon like, say, CB Heracross' Close Combat, or something...you're still in the green for an OHKO.

so, there's Haze to combat it, which I still believe to be a viable option, and I'm gonna say T.Spikes as well. Personally, though, I say this at least merits testing.
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People complain about Focus Blasts and SE 70-ish accuracy. All moves booted down to 70%, even Taunt and Haze, will jack over many and the metagame will be more heavily lopsided than it is.
 
I'm going to go back and read the posts more thouroughly, but im using this as a place holder for my post to edit later.

Sleep Clause is vital, otherwise it would just be scarf breloom -> spore all 6 mons, switch to fast set up sweeper, sweep. So basically, whoever wins the first speed tie with brelooms wins. "Fun." >__> Its there to make it more fun and more balanced.

Evasion Clause is also necessary because otherwise people would just do Tyranitar + Bright Powder Double Team Gliscor -Baton Pass-> <setup sweeper>. Very overcentralizing, very unfair and very not fun.

OHKO clause I think is necessary. Its just not fair to lose a potentially vital match or lose any match for that matter because your opponent got a lucky chance that Horn Drill or Sheer Cold happened to hit. It makes the game less fun and less fair.

Hax Item Clause isn't that just enforced on wifi? I've never heard of it really. Sounds dumb though.

Freeze Clause I completely agree with. Serene Grace Ice Punch Jirachi would be SO common. I dislike having all my pokemon frozen and incapable of battling. I'm not sure abot everyone else.

Species Clause should stay as well. Keeps people from using a team of 6 really strong pokemon or having multiple Rotom-A formes.
 
Unholy said:
Use Taunt.
... it would not be competitively healthy to promote a metagame that facilitates less skilled players winning purely by chance. It happens enough already with critical hits, random status, and such.

There's a reason why every Brawl player out there rages at Sakurai for programming tripping into the game.
Click to expand...

QFT. Let's not make luck an ever larger factor in this game. Getting your Heatran flixhaxed to death, missing Stone Edge five times in a row (worst move in the game, I admit), and all those haunting crits.......please, not even more of that crap.
 
Pratty said:
Sleep Clause is absolutely essential and only idiots will argue it is not essential.

Freeze Clause could be lifted, but...why? IIRC, even Pokemon Battle Revolution adopted this clause, and they probably simply didn't edit into D/P/Pt/HG/SS because it was too late and they wanted them to be compatible with each other. All it does is add more luck, even if it's an infintismal and insignificant amount. Feel free to life it, but I don't get why they should even waste time unclicking it.

Evasion Clause is because Evasion is annoying, but it could be tested. It'll just be annoying.

OHKO Clause is because OHKOs are stupid. I don't really see this one being undone: For example, just slap Choice Scarf on Suicune and you now have a 60%(Or more realistically, I think around 44% or something) chance of OHKOing any other Pokemon not wearing a Choice Scarf as well. Same with Abomasnow. And this assumes they can OHKO Suicune, of course. The entire thing is just a luck roulette of crap with a side of potential strategy.

Species Clause is meh. I think it's healthy, but I have always thought about the fun of being able to have more than one Pokemon...

I don't think Hax Item clause is even in Smogon's server anymore, I could be wrong? Either way, Hax Item clause is stupid. Hax Items, at the least, offer a trade-off between luck or consistancy. So they have a good element of strategy to them.
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I was going to post something in this thread, but you beat me to it. I agree with these statements.
 
Alan said:
OHKO clause I think is necessary. Its just not fair to lose a potentially vital match or lose any match for that matter because your opponent got a lucky chance that Horn Drill or Sheer Cold happened to hit. It makes the game less fun and less fair.
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This clause could actually make life easier for many pokemon due to the abundance of Sturdy. Not many pokemon would use the OHKO moves anyway because of Sturdy.

Most notably, Articuno will be more popular and Smeargle will have another set available to him. Magnezone will want to run Sturdy more often, making life easier for steel types out there. And a useless ability gets some use.
 
Evasion Clause - You DO NOT want to face Ninjask with Double Team!
Not only Ninjask but other Pokémon as well!


Freeze Clause - Pretty rare but this one is worse than Sleep! So one pokemon is Frozen you switch out to a Salamence or something an Start DDing since most Ice Type moves Freeze? O_O wow

Sleep Clause
- Perfect Rule! I hate Yawn Spamming!

OHKO Clause-Some people want this clause to go away but imagine a Scarfed Suicune Spamming Sheer Cold for 8 turns!

Species Clause- Also another perfect rule! One Blissey is good enough. >_>
I still remember that day! 6 Starmie vs 6 Blissey!

Hax Item Clause! - Battling sometimes relies on luck! I think this rule should be off! Those items have like 10- 20 % chance so it is not a big deal! This would make battling a little bit luck based and interesting!

These rules are pretty straight forward and they help us have a clean organized fun battle! I remember those Generation 3 Days when me and my fried used to sapm Double Team! Good times.....
 
Hax Item Clause is not enforced, that doesn't really need to be listed and I have never heard of it. Really I think we should just keep all the clauses we have now for 4th Gen, with things like Salamence and UU Testing going on I don't think we have the time to test them, the Smogon Council might get to it when it's actually formed but I think that after Salamence the testing could end and we can finally just have a standard 4th Gen for the few remaining months we have left.

Testing in 5th Gen might be possible though, the Smogon Council will reduce the time of all the testing we may have which should make enough time for these to be tested in the next generation. Honestly though I don't think any of the clauses will need to be removed, Freeze, Sleep, and Species Clause seem like they shouldn't even need testing. The only one that seem controversial is Evasion Clause but in my opinion that should just be kept intact so the game won't become more luck reliant, Double Team making moves like Thunderbolt miss sounds ridiculous. I don't think OHKO Clause really matters because no one wants to rely on a 30% chance when they can be attacked in the time, you could even Mind Reader+OHKO move but then you could have just 2HKO'd, for the sake of making the game less lucky it would be kept.
 
And where is the general no more than one of the same item clause, anyways?
Maybe it's just the message popping up every turn making the battles drag on, but I'm getting really tired of leftovers on everything.
 
I don't know about you guys, but I really wouldn't like to face a Double Team SubGliscor under Sandstorm. It could just pass whatever it wanted, or attack, or Toxic Stall, and it would be nearly impossible to get rid of. Just gotta pray that phazing move hits, no?
 
People are all talking about Scarf Breloom or Smeargle spore all 6 mons, but WHY would the opponent switch out to allow more of his mons to sleep?

Not saying that I disagree with Sleep Clause, but a sleep talk/snore-based metagame would be quite a sight to behold.
 
If Breloom gets in on something slower, you lose. Is that the kind of meta you want to play in? Okay, that's an extreme example, but anything can be played around and sleep-spam would be overcentralising and broken.
 
Evasion: Wouldn't mind giving this a try. To be honest the only really viable users of this would be BP Zapdos, Umbreon and maybe some kind of stalling Suicune. I don't think many people will suddenly be packing Haze for it. Instead, you'll just see Machamp even more often, Roar as a filler (it's affected by accuracy, yes, but most of the time it works, so it's an acceptable gamble if you have nothing else), etc. If you have a problem with Double Team Ninjask, you already had a problem with Ninjask and you deserved to lose to it.

Sleep Clause: People are getting their theorymon wrong here. From StreetPKMN experience, I can say Sleep Clause removal does not turn the game into "who has the fastest sleeper?". Granted, StreetPKMN has Darkrai who makes almost all other possibilities obsolete, but nonetheless I am fairly sure people will just pack a sleep absorber. It will greatly affect the ability to sweep with semi slow Pokémon though...for example, your nice Timid Calm Mind/Surf/Ice Beam/Hidden Power Suicune will always be at risk of getting Hypnotized by Gengar. But Dragon Dance Salamence remains undaunted.

OHKO Clause: Most Pokémon suck. The only ones you have to be afraid of are the ones that are durable enough to wall something, and thus can afford to try and OHKO something on the switch. For most physical Pokémon this is already less than ideal since Skarmory and Forretress can come in for free and put a layer there. So Hippowdon could run Earthquake/Stealth Rock/Slack Off/Fissure all it wants, but it's not going to do anything about that. Or any flying Pokémon whatsoever. More scary is for example Taunt/Fissure/Roost/Earthquake Gliscor, since if Skarmory comes in to wall Fissure, Gliscor can still Taunt it and bring in something else - you didn't get your free layer out. Sheer Cold would be more threatening if anything not weak to Stealth Rock learned it. As it is, the only Pokémon who would benefit from it (in my eyes) is Walrein, and Walrein should only be used on Abomasnow teams, where it has all the time in the world to wear the opponent down with residual damage and the occasional Surf/Blizzard. Sheer Cold isn't worth it compared to what Stallrein offers. I don't think even Sheer Cold Kyogre is a good idea - you might as well Ice Beam that Lati switch. Even if you're afraid of them Recovering it every time they come in, you have a ~15% chance of either freezing or critting them with Ice Beam. If you switch Lati into Ice Beam twice, it becomes more like 29% - pretty close to actually doing anything with Sheer Cold. And as the added benefit, Lati isn't at full health for your Lati counter if you Ice Beam it.

Freeze Clause: I like the luck reduction, weird as it sounds. I know that may not seem entirely consistent with my view of DT/OHKO, and I honestly don't care that much.

Hax Item Clause: That's for NB Brazilians.

Species: I might have been the first one to bring this up on Smogon?? Anyway, someone mentioned "we shouldn't do this because I might bring Swampert into the wrong Salamence". Well guess what, that might have happened if they only had one anyway. Regardless of Species Clause, Swampert is not a good first Salamence switch. And once it's revealed that they have two, it's likely you could tell them apart from their health bars (Life Orb and Stealth Rock damage). A good argument to keep Species in place is because it inherently makes the game less versatile. But I also think it adds strategic depth.
 
Ice-eyes said:
If Breloom gets in on something slower, you lose. Is that the kind of meta you want to play in? Okay, that's an extreme example, but anything can be played around and sleep-spam would be overcentralising and broken.
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If sleep clause is disabled, of course it'll be overcentralized. However, it'll still be another, valid metagame, although much more stale and much less fun than it is right now. IMO Sleep talk/Insomnia will be everywhere and pokemon that can sleep will rise in usage.
 
Maybe it would be better to not think of this stuff in terms of imbalance but rather in terms of fun. Species Clause: it's not fun to play against 6 Salamences. Sleep Clause: it's not fun to have every Pokemon on each team put to sleep. OHKO Clause: it's not fun to have your perfectly planned sweep ended by sheer luck. Freeze Clause: well, that one has never been an issue for me, but I guess it's not fun to have your whole team frozen. Evasion Clause: it's not fun to miss move after move after move. The primary purpose of this game is to have fun, and all these clauses (possibly bar Freeze) serve to increase the enjoyment of the game. Admittedly, balance does have some relevance to fun, as few would find it fun to play a version of OU with Kyogre enabled, as every team would have to be composed of Kyogre, Kingdra, and 4x Kyogre counters.
 
I think most of the clauses are perfectly fine. I remember in advance, it wasn't a ninjask that scared people with double team, it was the idea of bulky things like umbreon and zapdos baton passing double team. They all help to take out any other luck factors that would allow someone to win through sheer luck alone. It is already frustrating enough to face things like jirachi and machamp, I don't want more annoyances in the game.
 
I am against banning anything that isn't overpowered, and I am for playing the game and not a hack version, so hax item clause should not exist, and freeze clause should not exist. (Shoddy simulates local play, not wifi.)

I can't see how evasion would be overpowered. So I think it should be removed. I can't see how anyone would use it, when it is so unreliable. Would you use a move slot AND a turn to use something with a 75 % chance of not working? And to gain anything from using it, your opponent would have to miss twice, because of the turn you wastes. You may get to know what the opponent sends in, so you know what to use against it, but it only has a 25 % of working. Why not just use Substitute, which has a 100 % chance of working? I don't think people would want to use unreliable Baton Passers either. So, as I don't want anything not too powerful banned, I don't want evasion moves banned. The theorymon is so clear that I don't think it needs to be tested, it should just be allowed.

When it comes to OHKO clause, I am not as sure. The theorymon isn't as clear at this point. It should at least be tested.

Species clause should not be removed, it should stay.

Sleep Clause could be tested. I think the game would be much less fun with more sleep allowed, but we can't care about fun. But I think sleep moves may be overpowered so everything would centralize towards countering sleep.

Over to something different. Is it really right to ban some moves because similar moves are too powerful? If Draco Meteor only be learned by Pokémon of Salamence power and up, it would likely be banned. Would it be right to ban Overheat and Leaf Storm because they have the same effect as Draco Meteor? I think it is some of the same that has been done in some of the clauses. The most similar is OHKO clause. Is it really right to ban Fissure because Sheer Cold is overpowered? (I don't know if it is, but I will just assume it is here.) I think that maybe instead of having clauses, there whould be move ban lists. Like there is for pokémon. To ban all moves with one effect is some of the same as banning all Pokémon with total base stat of 600. Maybe only moves that prove to be too powerful should be banned, and not moves that are similar to the too powerful moves. Like Fissure may be allowed but Sheer Cold banned, Minimize should perhaps be allowed even if Double Team is too powerful. Minimize has much more limited learner pool than Double Team, and if no pokémon that learns Minimize is too powerful with it, why should it be banned? And maybe sleep clause could be removed, but Spore and Hypnosis banned and Grasswhistle and Sing allowed.

And this brings me to something else. Why do we say that Sheer Cold is too powerful because Suicune uses it well? Why don't we say that Suicune is the too powerful one? If screens and taunt were banned, Speed Deoxys could have been allowed. Then we would say that Screens and Taunt was overpowered because Deoxys speed uses it too well. And use that as an argument for keeping screens and taunt banned. Should no moves be banned? And banning only apply to Pokémon? I think that may be a correct solution.
 
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