Gen 3 Discussion Thread: ADV Baton Pass Vote

[Astamatitos]

Let's use this thread to discuss the upcoming ADV Baton pass vote.
PR Thread: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/adv-ou-baton-pass-test.3652847/

Where does each one of you stand on the matter?

 

[prozac]

I think baton pass is fair and beatable, until used with suction cups or soundproof. A ban needs to address these.

 

[Dizno]

I am pro-ban in regards to fullpass.

I personally believe that if you don't ladder in advanced then you are not really educated on this play style, as that is where it sees 95+% of it's usage.
I routinely see people saying things like "It's not OP, or even used at tour level, so no reason to ban it". I don't think anyone is making that argument. I believe fullpass should be banned because it takes the game out of the player's hands in regards to skill, and it is an unhealthy aspect of the tier.

It removes the skill factor from the game as it does not allow for players to double switch their way out of its path. It makes game outcomes incredibly team-oriented. It also punishes players much harder for bad matchup than anything else, forcing certain teams to make grotesque contortions in the builder to be viable on ladder.

I also think it's unhealthy for the metagame as it makes for lower quality games in terms of entertainment in both playing and watching. I know this isn't an objective criteria, but it's mutually shared by the ladder community for the most part.
It's a notably cheesy style that is used most commonly to either:
a) Annoy others on ladder by getting them trapped in a chain and punishing them sadistically.
b) Cheese better players in tour games as a defeatist tactic.

Although I hold these sentiments, I also respect the arguments of those who don't wish to see change.

 

[vapicuno]

Hello fellow ADVers,

I would like to advocate a lower bar for ladder qualification, on two bases

1) I think fullpass and bellypass affect the ladder more than tours. Although I am not an active tour player, I get the impression that tours with public replays have maybe a belly or fullpass usage of maybe 1 in 50 games, whereas in ladder it's maybe 1 in 5 at low ladder and 1 in 10 at high ladder. In fact, a high bar for ladder qualification does not include the very people that are affected the most, namely the mid-tier ladderers, and it is easy to be discouraged from playing the meta on ladder if you do not see BP teams as a challenge but a time waster. I think it even creates a vicious cycle where good players who want to avoid the high variance of BP teams decide to stay away from the ladder when BP users are around, and the ladder is seen as a dumping ground for incompetent players. Smogon tiering policy encorages both the ladder and tour playerbase to be taken into account, and as a pure ladder player I feel that it is important to see the ladder as an end in itself with a unique, respectable, competent and committed player base. A voting panel dominated by primarily tour players many of whom who treat ladder as a preparatory tool may not be able to fully appreciate such concerns.

2) I'm not sure that I understand how the number 85 gxe or 1500 elo is chosen, but I do think especially that the 85 can be a little high. Perhaps the council can explain how these numbers are decided. The GXE is a relative metric that compares you to other players in your gen, so in the extreme, if everyone is equally and very competent, the GXE will be 50. For an old gen, people who stick around and invest time in a smaller and older playerbase are more competent than new gens, so I think its fair for our requirements to be lower. For reference, the DPP Latias OU suspect test only asked for a GXE or 81. https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/dpp-ou-latias-retest.3644457/
Also, taking a cross section of the top ladder, (and because I can infer who these alts belong to) we see that regular top ladderers either don't find it easy to consistently achieve 85% GXE, or that many of those who do are already tour players who have already qualified. In a period where many competent players get on ladder just for this suspect test, we should expect that achieving a good GXE should be no easier, again given that the GXE is a relative metric.

In short, I hope we can allow more people who are most frequently and consistently affected by BP teams, which are those on ladder, to vote.

 

[undisputed]

Responding to vapicuno (not quoting because I think it looks cluttered)

Short answer is that the laddering requirement isn't set in stone. We (me, asta, UD, the others) are pretty aware of the demographic interested in qualifying for this test. We'll be keeping an eye on this group and may lower the reqs depending on how things shake out. The goal is not to exclude, but rather to sift out players who are genuinely skilled and interested.

For transparency, I literally selected 1500 ELO and 85 GXE because I looked at the ladder and know most of the alts, and the players who currently fulfill that standard are top notch. I've also played on the ladder more than most people know, and I don't personally think the requirement is overly difficult. A feat, for sure, but not insane. I am also unsure how the test will affect ELO/GXE compared to how they appear now. Will there be more good players on the ladder, and if so, will it be easier or harder to obtain a high GXE? Will high level alts (like those picture) play more games during this test, and how will that affect ratings? So ultimately, I feel better about setting a higher bar and relaxing if it really seems like no one can reach it.

You bring up an interesting argument regarding how BP primarily affects ladder players, which is true, but the tiering system we have just doesn't accommodate such distinctions. We tier to tournaments. We do not tier directly to ladder experience. When it comes to selecting voters, the best we can hope for are skilled players with a genuine interest in doing the right thing. A high ladder rating is a proxy for both. You can't achieve a high rating without being relatively skilled and a certain level of dedication to actually play the games and care. And in any case, many of the tournament qualified voters have substantial ladder experience (eg me, Asta, UD, McMeghan, Golden Sun). Even if we're primarily known as "tournament players," I believe we can make decisions with both the tournament and ladder metagame in mind. Your post gives me the sense we'd vote the same way.

 

[vapicuno]

Replying to undisputed

Thank you for assuring us that the council intends to also capture a representative group from the ladder. I appreciate it, and I'm sure other ladder players do as well.

While I do not doubt the intentions of the council in making this the best experience for players overall, I would like to understand how this statement

You bring up an interesting argument regarding how BP primarily affects ladder players, which is true, but the tiering system we have just doesn't accommodate such distinctions. We tier to tournaments. We do not tier directly to ladder experience.

Is consistent with these statements, from the tiering policy framework

II.) We cater to both ladder players (the higher end of the ladder) and tournament players.

• For actions to be taken in tiering policy, it is important to show how that action affects BOTH the ladder scene and the tournament scene.
• Stats for both will be highly emphasized but not a sole determining factor.

And

I.) To create a metagame that is conducive to the more "skilled" player winning over the less "skilled" player a majority of the time.

II.) To ensure that both our ladder and tournament crowds are catered to regarding I.)

It would be nice if the tiering council can be transparent about whether the tiering policy framework is being followed, if so how it is consistent with the claim that the council tiers to tournaments and not ladder directly. Alternatively, if the tiering policy framework is not followed, a justification for why not would be nice. Thanks, undi.

 

[Astamatitos]

I love to play devil's advocate as much as the next guy, vapicuno, but you'll find what Undisputed said to be, in fact, in line with Smogon's tiering policy framework.

In the tiering framework thread its stated: ''We cater to both ladder players (the higher end of the ladder) and tournament players.''

Emphasis on higher end. We are primarily concerned with the competitive aspects of the tier given that there's no objective measure of ''ladder experience''. My experience of a good ladder session can be vastly different to yours. The metagame on the higher end of the ladder bears no striking differences to games played in a tournament setting. I don't see how selecting high qualification standards is antithetic to the nature of the process. Furthermore, the very format of this vote (includes both the tournament AND the ladder scenes) is our best way to ensuring that the entirety of the adv community (both tournament players and ladder) is included.

I appreciate that the phrasing from Undisputed's post could of been different, but the bottom line is, and rest assured, that all appropriate guidelines regarding tiering are being followed here.

 

[vapicuno]

Thanks for the clarification Astamatitos . To be clear, I had no intention of antagonizing the council but just asked an honest question wanting a response that I thought many ADV enthusiasts would also like to know and understand. Cheers!

 

[Ortheore]

Out of curiousity, what differentiates Spikes Smeargle from other cases where a pokemon has a mix of non-broken and (potentially) broken sets? Blaze Blaziken (g5+) springs to mind as an example, though I'm sure there are better examples (like where the alternate sets are actually viable) that I'm forgetting, since I doubt this is a rare dynamic.

Not looking to get into an argument btw, just curious

 

[Deleted User 108547]

Recently I've been talking with some friends about this suspect and as prozac said soundproof is a key part of full chain BP teams (although some of them also pointed about TauntBreon).

I know that will be some controversial point but did somebody point the idea of ban Mr. Mime to ubers? I don't really know how oldgens tiers should be handle under tiering policy but according to ADV UU VR Mr. Mime is ranked as B- so even if the ban is against policy it's not a big impact in UU metagame while the benefits are huge for the OU metagame.

BP is something special to think about and "fix" but in an ideal scenario under the above ideas the rules for OU metagame would became in something like this:
- Standard clauses (OHKO, evasion... al you already know)
- Uber list as it's now but adding Mr. Mime (not any complex ban)
- Smeargle+BP ban (complex ban, but nothing that don't happen now with ingrain+BP, and Smeargle+BP affects also bellypass so can solve two problems at same time)

Are full BP chains teams the problem itself with >3 BP users the problem? Maybe the problem is called Mr. Mime who can easily neutralizes vast majority of phazers (roar Swampert, Tyranitar, Zapdos, Raikou, Suicune, Houndoom and perish song Celebi are all of them viable phazers who are neutralized by Mr. Mime).

That being said I'm not 100% commited with any ban (not even with BP on Smeargle) but I feel like Mr. Mime is something to point out and at least, read your opinions.

 

[Astamatitos]

I know that will be some controversial point but did somebody point the idea of ban Mr. Mime to ubers?

We did consider a Mr. Mime ban and did some empirical testing with simulated teams. While it is certainly a downgrade, it didn't prove as a strong enough of a nerf on its own. When Mr. Mime is removed, the bp chain adapts to a more taunt-centric theme with Taunt BP Hypno taking Mr. Mime's slot, Taunt Mawile > Scizor and Roar Vaporeon to minimize any openings to phasers. Ultimately the bp chains we constructed were very similar in effectiveness.

Given the above it was concluded that it is not Mr. Mime's presence that's being problematic per se. We therefore decided to propose a more serious nerf.

 

[sumwun]

Some people want to simply ban baton pass Smeargle, while others wanted to ban belly drum Smeargle and preserve other baton pass sets, right? Why did the council have to choose one of those options to let others vote for? Maybe there could have been 2 stages, with the first one being "ban a move on Smeargle" versus "change nothing". If over 60% vote to nerf Smeargle, then do a second vote between "ban baton pass on Smeargle" and "ban belly drum on Smeargle". I know I posted this a little bit late, but I'm still kind of curious.

 

[Hogg]

Some people want to simply ban baton pass Smeargle, while others wanted to ban belly drum Smeargle and preserve other baton pass sets, right? Why did the council have to choose one of those options to let others vote for? Maybe there could have been 2 stages, with the first one being "ban a move on Smeargle" versus "change nothing". If over 60% vote to nerf Smeargle, then do a second vote between "ban baton pass on Smeargle" and "ban belly drum on Smeargle". I know I posted this a little bit late, but I'm still kind of curious.

Speaking as tiering admin rather than as anyone on the council, in general Smogon’s tiering philosophy is to avoid complex bans whenever possible, and to always look at non-complex solutions first. Banning a specific move + Pokemon combination is the very definition of a complex ban, and something we try to avoid.

Now, there is a lot to be said for preserving old gens as much as possible, and to do so I think that sometimes it’s impossible to completely avoid complex bans. However, in this case there was already a complex ban created to curtail BP: Smeargle + Ingrain. The argument was that Smeargle still provided enough value to the metagame to be worth preserving, and banning Smeargle or Baton Pass outright would be an unreasonable restriction on the metagame.

Fast forward to the current situation, and it is clear that even with Ingrain Smeargle banned, Baton Pass chains are still causing problems. Part of that might be resolved with the reduction to three Baton Pass users per team, but the council was clearly still concerned with some aspects of Smeargle-passing, since DrumPass Smeargle in particular doesn’t require a full team’s support. However, adding on Belly Drum + Smeargle in addition to the already existing Ingrain + Smeargle ban would be adding on yet another complex ban for the exact same ‘mon. Adding on yet another restricted move for Smeargle is simply a bridge too far, at least from the perspective of overall tiering philosophy. To me, if a Pokemon requires multiple moves to be banned on it to remain competitive, that tells me that either the Pokemon itself is irreparably broken or there’s something else that is actually the problem.

Assuming that Smeargle is worth keeping around, changing the ban to Smeargle + Baton Pass eliminates that issue. Rather than being a new complex ban, this would be an update to the existing Smeargle clause, since removing Baton Pass from Smeargle would allow the council to free Ingrain and keep the total number of complex bans involving Smeargle the same. From a tiering perspective, this is definitely a much cleaner solution.

 

[Empress Mobile]

Just a quick thought on the topic. I know some of the hesitance behind banning Smeargle is the potential relevance of the Pokemon without BP. But do we really think it has any, if the threat of a potential BP is gone? The threat of possible BP causes many players to play more safely around it which is easily punished by Spikes. Without this mystery I would think Smeargle would be relegated to a Ninjask-level gimmick, predictable and easily naturally checked by virtually every team.

 

[Deleted User 108547]

Just a quick thought on the topic. I know some of the hesitance behind banning Smeargle is the potential relevance of the Pokemon without BP. But do we really think it has any, if the threat of a potential BP is gone? The threat of possible BP causes many players to play more safely around it which is easily punished by Spikes. Without this mystery I would think Smeargle would be relegated to a Ninjask-level gimmick, predictable and easily naturally checked by virtually every team.

During the suspect I played a huge amount of games using the underdog team from zf but with slight changes on Smeargle. This is the specific version I used:

Smeargle @ Lum Berry
Ability: Own Tempo
EVs: 68 HP / 188 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Spore
- Will-O-Wisp
- Memento
- Spikes

Even without BP Smeargle is a thing and has a couple of options under his belt: Is the fastest mon with access to a 100% accuracy sleep move, one of the few spikers along with Cloyster who doesn't get trapped by Magneton (although is trapped by Duggy) and versions with BD+Explosion or Memento can serve as a breaker and momentum gainer for other setup sweepers.

Certainly, BP was his main version but not his only weapon.