Announcement DPP OU Machamp Suspect Test (Machamp Banned)

[Conflict]

just chiming in quickly but what teal6 said rings true. one doesnt need to play dpp to see that some people are pushing hard to ban a mediocre mon with a small impact on the metagame that wont even change the landscape of this tier at all. winrates and usage rates are shit of champ.

some ppl of the council are rly pushing their agenda and trying to convince ppl that different viewpoints are unviable - they are not. idk why u guys are even all hellbelt on banning champ when it barely does anything in most games unless heavily supported (and any mon w that kinda support should do well unless its like NU).

more to come when i have more free time. also augusts as well as innisfree's posts basically echos all my sentiments. (2 classic winners vs champ ban now).

 

[Christos]

Too many straw man arguments on this thread. We do not want to ban Machamp for the reasons Salamence was banned, for example. Machamp is indeed a pokemon with many flaws: it's very slow, it doesn't offer much defensive utility and it is weak to entry harards. But that is exactly our argument as well: Machamp is a very mediocre pokemon that is often able to cause games to snowball out of control, if RNG cooperates. Reliance on RNG obviously makes it inconsistent, hence its low usage and mediocre winrate. August called it a safe ban and I couldn't agree more: we do not want to turn DPP on its head with such a ban, but rather remove a pokemon whose only real niche is pretty much spamming Dynamic Punch and praying for favorable RNG. I would have preferred to ban Dynamic Punch or No Guard instead, but the option we have also works.

 

[-Plush]

I'm a new player, and I'm not good enough (~1500 rn) nor motivated enough to make req on a meta I really don't like at the moment-- I would like to say that I've met several Machamps and it's doesn't feel particularly fun nor competitive, so my vote would be for ban. I also don't feel like there is as much counterplay as it was presented by some people here.

It's fine that Machamp is suspected now, but my main desire is that Jirachi will crash and burn after this. I'm aware and agree to it being a core presence of the current meta, but I just as much feel that the meta has an immense potential to be much more varied, fun, and full of interesting ideas and interactions, yet stuff like Jirachi+Clef is making the whole experience very numbing and boring. I'm aware and agree that minimizing and maximizing RNG can be a very nuanced and interesting part of the game, I feel the same too, but for how frustrating it can be to not be able to move, Jirachi is too good at abusing it.

I can understand if veterans who sticked to playing the relatively same-y Jirachi-centric meta for years might feel different about this, but I think people want to hear the voice of newcomers as well, so this is my 2 cents.

>Policy review thread is made about a possible jirachi suspect
>ends up leading to a survey about jirachi and machamp
>machamp leads by a noteworthy amount while Jirachi is neck and neck
>suspect thread on machamp is made
>"wtf why wasn't it jirachi"

Never change

Finally a chance to use this meme

 

[BKC]

As someone who does not play DPP there's something that stands out as super strange to me here. If Machamp is a Pokemon that can cause the worse player to win, why does it make so few appearances in top level tournaments? And why is its win rate pretty average even in those few appearances?

SPL XV - 5 appearances, 60% win
SPL XIV - 13 appearances, 46% win
SPL XIII - 4 appearances, 75% win
SPL XII - 7 appearances, 28% win
SPL XI - 4 appearances, 25% win

33 appearances out of ~230 games. What am I missing? Normally when I see a Pokemon banned it's closer to universal inclusion, but Machamp barely seems to be used at all? Is the crux of this ban a deep dislike of RNG in the game? I must surely be missing something major here.

As someone who has witnessed you repeatedly shit on DPP despite knowing nothing about it for close to a decade, I would like to establish just how much of a hypocritical, contrarian reactionary you are. For years, you used to peddle, with confidence as full as it was unearned, the bullshit myth you heard secondhand (from people who also didn't understand the tier) that this was a metagame too strong to not have team preview. Despite this not being the issue being discussed, it demonstrates both how clueless you are and how willing you are to jump on a bandwagon, no matter how misinformed.

As for the matter at hand, I have also witnessed you complain as enthusiastically as anyone else in the Smogtours lobby how Machamp paraspam makes this tier a joke. Funnily enough, your complaints roughly boiled down to the same arguments being made here: "Machamp just clicks DynamicPunch no matter what it faces, prays, and actually gets rewarded!" Now that there is an attempt to do something about it, you suddenly are greatly concerned with the sanctity of the tier. "Do players actually just dislike RNG this much?!" you ask with a straight face (after years of dismissing the tier as competitively worthless (largely because of its RNG)).

"What am I missing?" Something you'd understand if you ever actually touched this tier and experienced facing Machamp for yourself - note how in that replay DBC links a complete scrub actually switches Champ into the Hippowdon that is near full health, (close to) max Defense and still beats it lol (which has been happening regularly on the ladder, especially since actual competent players spam Ice Punch after the initial confusion) - although, given your track record of flip-flopping making it abundantly clear you are engaging in bad faith, I'm pretty sure you know exactly what the problem is and are just pretending, unless you want to dig your feet in and swear you've had an honest change of heart.

"I must surely be missing something major here." Yes, you are, despite the condescension implying it is actually the idiotic playerbase that have foolishly failed to consider usage statistics and win rate. (PS good job citing statistics a Pokemon argued to cause too much RNG, aka it inherently makes the game inconsistent lol. Did you know Baton Pass also didn't get a lot of usage or an amazing winrate?)

You have no investment in DPP. You have no opinions on DPP other than what you have heard secondhand from your friend group. I don't know what your motivation was for this - either you needed something to give a shit about / feel superior to and decided it'd be hilarious to rile up those annoying DPP players for, uh, trying to make their tier better lol, or you genuinely felt like anything you had to say on the matter was worthwhile. Either way, you have as much business talking about this metagame's tiering decisions as I do SV UU's, probably even less because while I'm not engaged with that tier I also don't have a track record of regurgitating my friends' opinions so I can shit on it.

 

[teal6]

As someone who has witnessed you repeatedly shit on DPP despite knowing nothing about it for close to a decade, I would like to establish just how much of a hypocritical, contrarian reactionary you are. For years, you used to peddle, with confidence as full as it was unearned, the bullshit myth you heard secondhand (from people who also didn't understand the tier) that this was a metagame too strong to not have team preview. Despite this not being the issue being discussed, it demonstrates both how clueless you are and how willing you are to jump on a bandwagon, no matter how misinformed.

This is fair and true, BKC, but the histrionics are absurd. You're right, I trolled and joked that way, but you're referring to something which last occurred half a decade ago.

As for the matter at hand, I have also witnessed you complain as enthusiastically as anyone else in the Smogtours lobby how Machamp paraspam makes this tier a joke. Funnily enough, your complaints roughly boiled down to the same arguments being made here: "Machamp just clicks DynamicPunch no matter what it faces, prays, and actually gets rewarded!" Now that there is an attempt to do something about it, you suddenly are greatly concerned with the sanctity of the tier. "Do players actually just dislike RNG this much?!" you ask with a straight face (after years of dismissing the tier as competitively worthless (largely because of its RNG)).

This is a lie. I do not make jokes like this in SmogTours, so you're making this up or confusing me with someone else.

"What am I missing?" Something you'd understand if you ever actually touched this tier and experienced facing Machamp for yourself - note how in that replay DBC links a complete scrub actually switches Champ into the Hippowdon that is near full health, (close to) max Defense and still beats it lol (which has been happening regularly on the ladder, especially since actual competent players spam Ice Punch after the initial confusion) -

A replay linked after my post lol, there's essentially no other replays in the thread at all showing the behavior you're looking for.

although, given your track record of flip-flopping making it abundantly clear you are engaging in bad faith, I'm pretty sure you know exactly what the problem is and are just pretending, unless you want to dig your feet in and swear you've had an honest change of heart.

You're making this up again. Flip flopping? If I've had a public opinion on Machamp anywhere in the 2020s or beyond I'll admit I 'flip flopped' but my post here came after discussion with a DPP player that I respect more than any other (you can likely guess who they are based on the posters in this thread).

I must surely be missing something major here." Yes, you are, despite the condescension

So explain it? DBC gave me a reasonable post, you had a meltdown here based on perceived ghosts.

Either way, you have as much business talking about this metagame's tiering decisions as I do SV UU's, probably even less because while I'm not engaged with that tier I also don't have a track record of regurgitating my friends' opinions so I can shit on it.

I have genuinely no idea what you're talking about here, it's a strange response. I honestly and sincerely think you're confusing me with a different human, because I cannot imagine you're still this worked up over me and ABR joking around like 6-7 years ago about old tiers. Time has moved on and people have grown, and while you may not believe it, my post was entirely sincere.

I do not imagine we'll be able to sort this out properly as you've ascribed like four different potential malicious motivations onto me when I asked why a mon with barely any usage was getting banned (while half the posts in this thread say "its Jirachi thats the problem" and the classic winners all say "yeah this is a bad ban"). But if you want to make an argument I can follow in this thread (this is your first post here) I'll be sure to read it.

 

[Excal]

I have genuinely no idea what you're talking about here, it's a strange response. I honestly and sincerely think you're confusing me with a different human, because I cannot imagine you're still this worked up over me and ABR joking around like 6-7 years ago about old tiers. Time has moved on and people have grown, and while you may not believe it, my post was entirely sincere.

I do not imagine we'll be able to sort this out properly as you've ascribed like four different potential malicious motivations onto me when I asked why a mon with barely any usage was getting banned (while half the posts in this thread say "its Jirachi thats the problem" and the classic winners all say "yeah this is a bad ban"). But if you want to make an argument I can follow in this thread (this is your first post here) I'll be sure to read it.

your post came off as insincere because:
1. you started it with stating that you don't play the tier
2. your post, especially before you stealth edited it stripping the contents down, came off as condescending and had an “I know better than the playerbase” tone ("i must surely be missing something")
3. it comes off as bandwagoning your friends posts when you have 0 stake in the game, and you're preoccupied with status by namedropping and aligning yourself with "classic winners"

as a general principle, i don't think it's helpful nor appropriate to post in threads involving tiering decisions for a metagame that you don't play, especially veiled under fake politeness. august, innisfree, conflict, etc have their own, non-hivemind opinions, largely bred from their experience playing the tier, so their posts are respectable and understandable. yours doesn't fall into the same category and it's understandable why dpp players would be miffed after reading your post.

if you're actually curious about why machamp is being suspected, please read the op and find the link to the original machamp thread, which has a lot of discussion leading up to the suspect, as well as the survey results which show that the qualified playerbase favored action on machamp over jirachi at this time.

 

[ABR]

I imagine some people want to keep the discussion to machamp-only but it is inevitably tied to jirachi and imo we can't fully isolate variables here.

I find it hypocritical (of the playerbase, less the council) to prefer a champ ban over a rachi ban, when rachi is omnipresent and impacts far more games. Banning the less powerful / broken things because you (collective) are used to playing with rachi is wrong.

There is also the fact that all the champ teams use rachi as well to enable it. You can use rachi without champ but almost never the inverse, so how can champ be the banworthy one?

I'd rather not reward misguided complaints and will be voting DNB.

 

[Excal]

There is also the fact that all the champ teams use rachi as well to enable it. You can use rachi without champ but almost never the inverse, so how can champ be the banworthy one?

This is a common misconception. The most popular Machamp + Jirachi teams are the following:



Both of these Machamp + Jirachi teams are older structures (at least 4 years old). What's an issue they have in common? They are both very weak to opposing Jirachi (something that crayon pop mentioned in his post: you can use jirachi effectively to thwart paralysis-based strategies). Unfortunately the Emeral vs MAX UND MAX replay from global finals 3 years ago died bc they played on main, it was a great example of this -- superachi being used to clean sweep the champ loom blissey team after blissey died to boom.

In my opinion, the strongest machamp structures are based around the Azelf + Gyarados + Machamp offensive core, which tends to not include Jirachi in modern times because competing Steel types like Metagross and Heatran who are either bulkier or more fortified against Jirachi are preferred since Jirachi doesn't have the short term offensive output that a heavy Machamp offense tends to prefer. These are example structures:



To sum this up, clearing this common misconception that Jirachi is the culprit for all of Machamp's "sins"
1. Not all Machamp teams use Jirachi to enable it; DPP has a diverse number of viable and top level threats that spread paralysis
2. Jirachi can often used as an effective weapon against paraspam strategies, sometimes in healthy ways (superachi)
3. Jirachi is not necessarily intrinsically tied to this tiering discussion, as while Jirachi can be attributed to some of Machamp's rng-induced strategies, Machamp is also its own issue separate from Jirachi.

I ultimately do not feel that this suspect is supposed to be a distraction to DPP's bigger issues or anything like that. The playerbase enjoys the tier, according to the survey, and may prefer to make a smaller change to improve the tier as opposed to a monumental one like Jirachi. Even if you disagree with what the community chose, it's really not that mysterious why it occurred like this.

 

[Kristyl]

Personally I don't care about usage in regards to tiering, maybe some people think a Pokemon or item has to be top 10 in usage to be banned but I don't. Ban Sand Attack,Confuse Ray,Quick Claw,Scope Lens and more without a second thought in my opinion. I put Machamp and even Togekiss in a similar category to those things, they've proven to be not necessary and add very little in value.

You can use rachi without champ but almost never the inverse, so how can champ be the banworthy one?

This is just wrong lol. Machamp needs to be banned with or without Jirachi, Excal has argued before that it's even more broken without Jirachi in the tier and I tend to agree. While Machamp and Jirachi are often paired together we see Machamp come out before paralysis has even been spread and do its thing anyway.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-785225?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-694220
(Game essentially came down to the Zapdos turns, this would happen with or without Jirachi and actually this replay kind of shows me using Jirachi as a way to beat paralysis spam)
I'm not at home so I'm just providing some off the top of my head since Teal asked.

Also just wanna say that starting a post with "I dont play dpp but" is embarassing and I've seen it a lot in this thread.

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

By the way... frosslass has been banned as of december 2023,

Implemented Post in thread 'DPP Snow Cloak'

Dec 18, 2023

The DPP Council has decided to adopt the current tiering policy framework regarding banning of evasion abilities, and as such, Snow Cloak is now banned. The rationale for the ban is that Snow Cloak is inherently uncompetitive, therefore, it does not matter if only a specific Pokemon is the primary abuser of it.

At the time of the Sand Veil ban, the DPP Council was cognizant of the similarities between Snow Cloak and Sand Veil. However, we decided to not put Pokemon having Snow Cloak as its only ability (e.g., Froslass) under the chopping block because there is only one hail setter...

• DeepBlueC

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• 
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As someone who does not play DPP there's something that stands out as super strange to me here. If Machamp is a Pokemon that can cause the worse player to win, why does it make so few appearances in top level tournaments? And why is its win rate pretty average even in those few appearances?

SPL XV - 5 appearances, 60% win
SPL XIV - 13 appearances, 46% win
SPL XIII - 4 appearances, 75% win
SPL XII - 7 appearances, 28% win
SPL XI - 4 appearances, 25% win

33 appearances out of ~230 games. What am I missing? Normally when I see a Pokemon banned it's closer to universal inclusion, but Machamp barely seems to be used at all? Is the crux of this ban a deep dislike of RNG in the game? I must surely be missing something major here.

We banned frosslass, a mon who likely has seen much less usage
SPL 14 - | 34 | Froslass | 2 | 2.13% | 0.00% |
SPL 13 - | 44 | Froslass | 1 | 1.04% | 100.00% |
SPL 12 - 0 USES
SPL 11 - 0 USES
SPL 10 - 0 uses

Thread 'Smogon Premier League XIV - Usage Statistics'

Jan 23, 2023

Overall Usage | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Semifinals | Finals

Overall Usage

SV OU

Leads / Combos / Moves + Teammates

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------...

• DugZa
• Replies: 11
• Forum: Smogon Premier League

• 
• 

Thread 'Smogon Premier League XIII - Usage Statistics'

Jan 18, 2022

Overall Usage | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Semifinals | Finals

Overall Usage

SS OU

Leads / Combos / Moves + Teammates

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- +...

• Ticken
• Replies: 11
• Forum: Smogon Premier League

• 
• 

Thread 'Smogon Premier League XII - Usage Statistics'

Jan 18, 2021

Overall Usage l Week 1 l Week 2 l Week 3 l Week 4 l Week 5 l Week 6 l Week 7 l Week 8 l Week 9 l Semifinals l Finals

Overall Usage

SS OU

Leads / Combos / Moves + Teammates

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ +...

• Jordy
• Replies: 9
• Forum: Smogon Premier League

• 
• 
• 

Thread 'Smogon Premier League XI - Usage Statistics'

Jan 12, 2020

Smogon Premier League XI - Usage Statistics

Overall Usage l SS Home Statistics l Playoffs
Week 1 l Week 2 l Week 3 l Week 4 l Week 5 l Week 6 l Week 7 l Week 8 l Week 9




​

Cumulative Usage (SS Tiers include Home usage)

SS OU...

• Aurella
• Replies: 11
• Forum: Smogon Premier League

• 
• 
• 

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/spl-x-weekly-usage-stats.3646001/

You talk about a mon that has made so few apperance but we banned a mon on the basis of "The rationale for the ban is that Snow Cloak is inherently uncompetitive, therefore, it does not matter if only a specific Pokemon is the primary abuser of it." and "The "TL/DR" for those who have not watched the replays is that Froslass' excellent speed tier allows it multiple opportunities to fish for a miss (under hail), and a single miss can snowball in favour of the Froslass user. We understand that Froslass has healthy aspects that have utility in the metagame, but they pale in comparison to the drawbacks accompanying a Froslass that tries to abuse hail."

This decision has yet to be reversed so as of december 24th, 2024 snow cloak remains banned from OU, this mon got 3 uses out of much more games and yet was shot for the basis of a healthier metagame. I wonder why not go for machamp? Machamp not only creates an environment where you just have to gamble your way out of 50% punching yourself in the face status but also it can just turn a match into disabling the opponents ability to do anything

 

[Jeong]

Do you believe me if I tell you that yesterday I witnessed a Jirachi scarf (click iron head) kill my Magneton scarf full hp + fable +3 Cosmic Power? If you ban Machamp, rachi can go with him too.

I'm tired of such anti-competitive mons. The world would be a better place without them, certainly.

 

[aubury]

bla

I notice a pattern of common misconceptions from great players who don't have much stake in the tier, so I'll take the time to dissect what I find wrong with what you said.
You can choose to be elitist and ignore what the in your eyes total no-name has to say, won't make it any less true.

I imagine some people want to keep the discussion to machamp-only but it is inevitably tied to jirachi and imo we can't fully isolate variables here.

There is also the fact that all the champ teams use rachi as well to enable it. You can use rachi without champ but almost never the inverse, so how can champ be the banworthy one?

Nothing wrong with expanding the discussion to Jirachi. Machamp is indeed tied to it but as explained by Excal and Kris who are both better at the tier than I'll ever be, the ties are not exactly what you seem to think they are.

I find it hypocritical (of the playerbase, less the council) to prefer a champ ban over a rachi ban, when rachi is omnipresent and impacts far more games. Banning the less powerful / broken things because you (collective) are used to playing with rachi is wrong.

This is either blatantly dishonest or completely ignorant of the current sentiment. There is no obvious 'preference' when there's plenty voices screaming for both to go. Sure, the polls suggest there were more people in favor of an immediate Machamp ban which led to this suspect and I think there's a very good and obvious reasons for that.
Jirachi has an entire metagame that evolved around it and people have either theorized that the tier would be worse off without it or don't like the uncertainty that comes.
As for Machamp, banning it would almost certainly increase the health of the tier without much consequences so ofcourse it's going to have an easier time reaching the suspect phase. Nothing hypocritical about that.

I'd rather not reward misguided complaints and will be voting DNB.

It's a shame one of the greatest players on the site makes decisions out of spite as opposed to reason.
I'm sure you recognize Machamp as a bullshit mon and if Jirachi wasn't a bigger piece of shit you would have voted to ban Machamp.
When you make statements like this one you just come off as malicious.
So I kindly ask you to vote yes and help us improve the tier.

 

[NordicRest]

I'm also linking a replay here of Machamp doing what it does, i.e., taking out some of the more resilient phys def Pokemon via RNG:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-2267805319-920pab4jocgzlhalg4e15o79xi3i1mmpw

I'm a little confused what the issue is in this replay. Yes, Machamp beat a Pokemon that "should" be strong against it. But it only did so because you gave it every chance to do so. You didn't pivot through Gyarados, you didn't go to your Scarf Cresselia, you stayed in when even barring the crit you were leaving it to a 37.5% chance to either snap out of confusion or act normally to be able to Slack Off to survive the next DPunch. Overall, you gave yourself a notably lower chance to keep Hippo than relying on a Rachi not flinching on a single Iron Head. When you're playing against RNG reliant Pokemon like Machamp, you need to play to minimize the likelihood of negative outcomes, which you flatly did not do.

On top of that, you were playing a slow, bulky team. Machamp is strong against slow, bulky teams. Machamp is supposed to be strong against your team, and yet it ended up doing very little. You played a team weak against a certain Pokemon, played poorly into it, were punished for your misplay, won, and you're still in favour of banning it. You're not in favour of banning it because it's uncompetitive. You're in favour of banning it because it's annoying to play against. I'm in favour of changing some of Smogon's tiering philosophy to focus on what actually drives suspects and Ban/DNB votes: what people think would make the game more fun. I fully support people voting Ban on Pokemon that they think make the metagame less fun to play, rather than less competitive. All I ask is that you're a little more honest about your reasoning.

The Machamp did what it does best to beat my Hippo, and if the opp had something like DD TTar in the back, I could've been cooked.

If your Hippo was so necessary to beat theoretical physical threats, why did you play so loose with it? If your opponent had a DD Tar in the back and won with it, I'd argue that that result was precisely what should have happened. Poor play on your part results in a hole that your opponent successfully exploits. That is, the more skillful player would have won, as the Smogon definition of "uncompetitive" defines.

note how in that replay DBC links a complete scrub actually switches Champ into the Hippowdon that is near full health, (close to) max Defense and still beats it lol (which has been happening regularly on the ladder, especially since actual competent players spam Ice Punch after the initial confusion)

I've been out of anything more than a casual interest in DPP for over a decade, and you're both a substantially better Pokemon player than me now, and probably better than I'd be were I to devote as much time to the game as you do. Still, I'm curious to know by what mechanic you propose a Machamp running DPunch/TPunch/Payback/Substitute would spam Ice Punch.

 

[RainebowValiant]

to state the obvious, i think this thread is lowkey getting to a really toxic point where it's both unhelpful for anybody trying to understand why people think it's broken as well as unhelpful for people trying to make legitimate ban/DNB arguments. i think a lot of people here are going too far with their arguments and resorting to ad hominem attacks, bad reasoning, and overall gatekeeping opinions based on skill level. i don't understand why people are doing this beyond the obvious "people really strongly care about DPP" but honestly being rude in a machamp suspect thread doesn't show your care for the tier.

edit: "As someone who has witnessed you repeatedly shit on DPP despite knowing nothing about it for close to a decade, I would like to establish just how much of a hypocritical, contrarian reactionary you are. For years, you used to peddle, with confidence as full as it was unearned, the bullshit myth you heard secondhand (from people who also didn't understand the tier) that this was a metagame too strong to not have team preview. Despite this not being the issue being discussed, it demonstrates both how clueless you are and how willing you are to jump on a bandwagon, no matter how misinformed." is genuinely lavos level in the copypasta department

 

[DeepBlueC]

I'm a little confused what the issue is in this replay. Yes, Machamp beat a Pokemon that "should" be strong against it. But it only did so because you gave it every chance to do so. You didn't pivot through Gyarados, you didn't go to your Scarf Cresselia, you stayed in when even barring the crit you were leaving it to a 37.5% chance to either snap out of confusion or act normally to be able to Slack Off to survive the next DPunch. Overall, you gave yourself a notably lower chance to keep Hippo than relying on a Rachi not flinching on a single Iron Head. When you're playing against RNG reliant Pokemon like Machamp, you need to play to minimize the likelihood of negative outcomes, which you flatly did not do.

Let's play through the different scenarios, shall we?

1) I switch my Gyarados into Machamp's potential Bulk Up. Then what? My Gyara takes in 25% rocks chip, and he has ThunderPunch, so my Gyara is screwed.
2) I switch my Scarf Cress into Machamp's Dynamic Punch. Then what? I could get confused while he Paybacks me, or he could still Dynamic Punch me if I plan to switch out to Heatran.

Getting confused is inevitable and having to fight through confusion makes the Machamp interaction all the more difficult.

On top of that, you were playing a slow, bulky team. Machamp is strong against slow, bulky teams. Machamp is supposed to be strong against your team, and yet it ended up doing very little. You played a team weak against a certain Pokemon, played poorly into it, were punished for your misplay, won, and you're still in favour of banning it. You're not in favour of banning it because it's uncompetitive. You're in favour of banning it because it's annoying to play against. I'm in favour of changing some of Smogon's tiering philosophy to focus on what actually drives suspects and Ban/DNB votes: what people think would make the game more fun. I fully support people voting Ban on Pokemon that they think make the metagame less fun to play, rather than less competitive. All I ask is that you're a little more honest about your reasoning.

With all due disrespect, I'm not taking playing advice from someone who isn't good enough to make the reqs and will hide behind the excuse of "oh I can't be bothered to make it."

You say Machamp is supposed to be strong against my team, but you conveniently ignore how it is strong against my team, i.e., via the threat of confusion. That's not the type of "threat" I want to encourage.

Yes, it is annoying to play against anything RNG-based. Duh.

If your Hippo was so necessary to beat theoretical physical threats, why did you play so loose with it? If your opponent had a DD Tar in the back and won with it, I'd argue that that result was precisely what should have happened. Poor play on your part results in a hole that your opponent successfully exploits. That is, the more skillful player would have won, as the Smogon definition of "uncompetitive" defines.

Skill = Dynamic Punch confusing your way through big threats?

Good that you're not remotely in charge of anything tiering-related.

I've been out of anything more than a casual interest in DPP for over a decade, and you're both a substantially better Pokemon player than me now, and probably better than I'd be were I to devote as much time to the game as you do. Still, I'm curious to know by what mechanic you propose a Machamp running DPunch/TPunch/Payback/Substitute would spam Ice Punch.

Lmao over a decade? Another fossil has come out of the woodwork.

If you read BKC's statement, he mentions that "actual competent players" would run Ice Punch, which would allow the Machamp user to preserve their Dynamic Punch PP, while at the same time dishing out the same damage and having a chance to inflict freeze.

 

[robertshortgrass]

I couldn't agree more with what Christos had to say, summing up all my thoughts better than I could have. For those that feel banning Machamp is a win for stall, I'd say it is not. There are much better breakers than Machamp in DPP OU including; Mixed Infernape, Breloom, CB Gyarados, and Mamoswine. Water types in general are pretty good into stall seeing as the most popular stall builds only have Latias as their Water resist. Ape and Loom are obvious picks, but the last two are a bit underrated. The only things not getting 2HKOd by CB Gyara are Skarmory and Latias, which are easy to deal with. Mamo's coverage of Ice Fang, Earthquake, Ice Shard, and Knock Off literally have no switch-ins, and it is more than capable of finishing off a weakened team.
These mons obviously have their flaws, but no mon is perfect and is no reason to overlook them. I do think confusion is an unfair and unhealthy status effect and would rather see it banned over Machamp, but as many have said before, if at this moment my choices are ban Machamp or do nothing, I'd choose to ban Machamp.

 

[Stories]

People are begging for change in this terrible metagame and this has to be the least impactful suspect possible. If you really hate the RNG that much, there is a Pokemon with the best stats and best type and best movepool in the entire tier with better odds to bypass "checks" than Machamp could ever dream of having. Let's not pretend we're banning Machamp because we hate how it affects the tier, it's being suspected because it BARELY affects the tier at all. Banning Froslass and now this just so you can pretend you're trying to make changes when people bitch about the tier you can say "hey man look we're trying to make changes, nobody wanted to follow through on them!" Just cut to the chase, you can't keep this up forever. The tier is gonna have to change, like actually change, eventually

 

[Charmflash]

I've seen some people argue that Machamp is not broken win-rate wise, and it's not even the most used Pokemon, so it shouldnt be banned. Back when I was on the current gen council we were discussing the re-ban of moody, which we eventually went through with here. In this post Finchinator explains our decision at the time as such:
"While we are hesitant to label Moody as "broken" per our tiering policy framework, we believe it satisfies the criteria set forth for declaring strategies "uncompetitive." "
Later on, long after my departure from the council they also banned a bunch of luck-based items with very limited competitive use cases. Here is that post.

Machamp is seeing similar levels of ban support by the community, not due to it's incredibly consistent W's or 90% usage rate, but due to the nature of turning an otherwise skill expressive game into a coin flip simulator. I personally believe that Dynamic Punch as a whole is a problematic element similar to those I've listed above, perhaps even moreso when used on Pokemon not named Machamp. However, the DPP council has decided to test the Pokemon in this case, accomplishing a very similar goal through a more orthodox tiering strategy.

People are also saying this isn't enough action to bring the tier in a better direction, and I would agree but it is a step in the right direction and a step worth taking. Not sure why there is so much all or nothing RIGHT NOW attitude going around. Let the council cook, they are trying to improve the tier and make it more enjoyable for people.

 

[twash]

People are begging for change in this terrible metagame and this has to be the least impactful suspect possible. If you really hate the RNG that much, there is a Pokemon with the best stats and best type and best movepool in the entire tier with better odds to bypass "checks" than Machamp could ever dream of having. Let's not pretend we're banning Machamp because we hate how it affects the tier, it's being suspected because it BARELY affects the tier at all. Banning Froslass and now this just so you can pretend you're trying to make changes when people bitch about the tier you can say "hey man look we're trying to make changes, nobody wanted to follow through on them!" Just cut to the chase, you can't keep this up forever. The tier is gonna have to change, like actually change, eventually

This is simply not true and not the purpose of this ban for many voters. The tiering survey shows that many people are not begging for drastic change and only want minor quality of life changes.

 

[Stories]

This is simply not true and not the purpose of this ban for many voters. The tiering survey shows that many people are not begging for drastic change and only want minor quality of life changes.

in those cases I don’t see any reason to keep Machamp around then either, not much of value is lost with him gone. One step forward in the right direction I guess

 

[elodin]

seconding august 's great post... just wanted to come out and say that i am vehemently against a machamp ban and also voted against this suspect when it was proposed by the council.

machamp has been a staple in competitive dpp for nearly 20 years now and nothing apart from metagame trends has impacted it to the point of becoming broken now compared to what it was years ago.

paraspam has been a relevant playstyle in dpp for ages, and, yes, machamp is one of its best abusers, but trying to make an argument that this pokemon is broken is just silly imo.

machamp is slow. it's weaker than other offensive threats in the tier. its sets are limited. it offers 0 defensive value to any team apart from being a solid switch-in to tyranitar and sometimes clefable (you don't wanna get knocked). it is easily checked and revenge killed by a plethora of pokemon. it is also countered by a considerable amount of pokemon, most noticeably the rotom forms and defensive latias, staples in the current meta.

what i see is that machamp is particularly disruptive to a current metagame trend of defensive teams that rely on passive damage to win games while abusing pokemon such as clefable, skarmory, rotom and the gang to maintain pressure via sand/hazard immunity. this has been the most popular playstyle in dpp and this is precisely the type of matchup in which machamp thrives against, because it often gets multiple opportunities in a match to throw out strong attacks and fish for confusion/paralysis odds vs slower targets.

does this make machamp broken? not at all. this doesn't even make machamp unhealthy; quite the opposite, really. machamp is a pokemon that poses as a severe threat to teams that currently dominate the metagame and rely on a passive, defensive playstyle to win games, and it doesn't even win automatically vs these teams as well, because it's an easy pokemon to wear down through spikes and other forms of passive damage.

this suspect seems to me like a classic example of a playerbase becoming more and more frustrated by facing elements that are disruptive to the status quo because it creates scenarios where the winning path isn't necessarily based on a linear, traditional gameplan. you can't expect to win every dpp game by throwing in clefable latias skarm on your team and just passively phazing your opponent to death. these types of teams need active countermeasures and machamp is simply a solid option in this regard.

machamp being banned would be a disservice to the tier and would represent a significant issue by opening a solid tier to posterior, unwarranted changes. solidly against this ban and this suspect.

 

[bruno]

I failed to get reqs with my first account and there is no way im trying that again. You constantly play people restarting their account back to the 1000s even though that doesn't reflect their skill level, often leading to 500 turns vs stuff like bkc stall for +5 points or absolute account destruction, that is if you aren't getting past paraspam teams that genuinely make no sense but the person actually plays it well(i assume a lot of new players being passed teams)

i don't understand how anybody gets reqs atm unless they got them early or played 5000 games. Theres literally a mf at 150 games 1640 9th on ladder but guess what, they're not 85 gxe yet, bro could literally peak the ladder and still not get reqs

i would love to see 90% of these selected voters try to get reqs rn btw, please let me get a 7-2 spl to vote over ever trying this naughtier-than-hex-pult ahhh dumpster ever again


This thread is just old ass farts vs zoomers/bkc drones/the focking cabal. I was leaning with the fossils too but honestly watching some people play this ladder and playing it myself for 2 evenings has really made me ponder over things a lot.

I think both sides here are completely reasonable, though there's some weird shit going on from both. Shitting on the meta and saying its just paraspam with 0 room for creativity is ridiculous, but most of these kinds of posts are just people who have never bothered with dpp and probably just tried this suspect(which honestly, yeah, probably your worst introduction to dpp) so i guess who gives a fuck.

I still believe this metagame is phenomenal and there's an insane amount of growth to still be done. If you think otherwise i recommend this thread. I think mr jimmy cool said it best in his vid, the ladder rn feels like it's at it's most degenerate and people are just trying to find anything for easy wins. Jim gave up after 500 accounts, joey doesn't even care anymore and is just enjoying riding the paraspam wave

But also, some of the posts defending machamp by saying it's even a welcome presence, it's good to punish fat teams, it's a bad mon etc, feel kinda stupid too. Let's be real the mon literally doesn't add any good and no you don't need to be using a bulky build to get coinflipped by dynamicpunch. Literally lead anything that isnt lum against sash machamp and enjoy immediately having to deal with things out of your control, or mid/endgame custap Machamp scenarios a la this game. Machamp is also literally objectively a bad choice if you really wanna beat fat and you are good(aside from like bulk up) because you are relying on confusion when there's many, many better outlets out there to beat stall.

Stall often has a ton of freedom to stall dpunch and mostly just needs to dodge one or two crucial turns. But that's the entire point from pro-ban side. Why even have this in the first place.

Now, if you think machamp shouldn't be banned because it's just not good enough or it doesn't appear in every other game haxing people out, i think thats an absolutely fair way to see it. You aren't gonna be out here opening DPP games and seeing machamp blast everybody's ass apart, however, it can absolutely bullshit out certain game scenarios. But let's call a spade a spade and understand that's the whole point from both and that there's no need to be shitting on each other when both sides clearly make sense(casually bullying teal for asking a genuine question btw, one that isn't unreasonable at all. s/o dbgoat and cabal for actually responding)

I also overall kinda agree that Jirachi is what needs to be looked into more and since I personally believe both sides are fair, I'm fine with whichever result comes from the suspect, as long as the voters are actually thinking for themselves.

I used to be completely opposed to this, but I think the best move forward is, genuinely, banning iron head from Jirachi. It's kinda always been something pushed by the playerbase that is denied by the higher ups. But we have a problem here. This tier has an exception case that needs to be dealt with differently. We have a small ass community and people just wanna enjoy the game. Gatekeeping the best way of improving the tier for the sake of policy is not worth it.

It's literally the only thing you can do too btw, because banning Jirachi entirely is asinine and would need an entire metagame shift of bans. It's also a perfectly fine mon otherwise and, if anything, it would add to more creativivty from Jirachi gamers. I think i've seen enough after iron head/bslam/fire punch/sub 252 hp rachi solod a team after hp ground zone killed lefties tran. Iron head is a ridiculously free click with added leftovers and trying to use something like zen headbutt instead would never be anywhere as consistent with miss chances and 20% instead of 30% pre serene grace, not to mention being literally walled by tyranitar.

Also not opposed to banning Waterfall from Gyara. it's about to be big 2025 let mfs who play the tier enjoy it the way they want. Or, go play this ladder and see what is actually happening before sitting in the armchair and pretending people are insane.

Also while we're at it please unban froslass, super interesting lead that was underutilized and never optimized because the community got collectively hypnotized by excal


DPP: 100,00 outta 100,000, I'll still choose you

 

[Drainpeck✫]

I failed to get reqs with my first account and there is no way im trying that again. You constantly play people restarting their account back to the 1000s even though that doesn't reflect their skill level, often leading to 500 turns vs stuff like bkc stall for +5 points or absolute account destruction, that is if you aren't getting past paraspam teams that genuinely make no sense but the person actually plays it well(i assume a lot of new players being passed teams)

i don't understand how anybody gets reqs atm unless they got them early or played 5000 games. Theres literally a mf at 150 games 1640 9th on ladder but guess what, they're not 85 gxe yet, bro could literally peak the ladder and still not get reqs

i would love to see 90% of these selected voters try to get reqs rn btw, please let me get a 7-2 spl to vote over ever trying this naughtier-than-hex-pult ahhh dumpster ever again


This thread is just old ass farts vs zoomers/bkc drones/the focking cabal. I was leaning with the fossils too but honestly watching some people play this ladder and playing it myself for 2 evenings has really made me ponder over things a lot.

I think both sides here are completely reasonable, though there's some weird shit going on from both. Shitting on the meta and saying its just paraspam with 0 room for creativity is ridiculous, but most of these kinds of posts are just people who have never bothered with dpp and probably just tried this suspect(which honestly, yeah, probably your worst introduction to dpp) so i guess who gives a fuck.

I still believe this metagame is phenomenal and there's an insane amount of growth to still be done. If you think otherwise i recommend this thread. I think mr jimmy cool said it best in his vid, the ladder rn feels like it's at it's most degenerate and people are just trying to find anything for easy wins. Jim gave up after 500 accounts, joey doesn't even care anymore and is just enjoying riding the paraspam wave

But also, some of the posts defending machamp by saying it's even a welcome presence, it's good to punish fat teams, it's a bad mon etc, feel kinda stupid too. Let's be real the mon literally doesn't add any good and no you don't need to be using a bulky build to get coinflipped by dynamicpunch. Literally lead anything that isnt lum against sash machamp and enjoy immediately having to deal with things out of your control, or mid/endgame custap Machamp scenarios a la this game. Machamp is also literally objectively a bad choice if you really wanna beat fat and you are good(aside from like bulk up) because you are relying on confusion when there's many, many better outlets out there to beat stall.

Stall often has a ton of freedom to stall dpunch and mostly just needs to dodge one or two crucial turns. But that's the entire point from pro-ban side. Why even have this in the first place.

Now, if you think machamp shouldn't be banned because it's just not good enough or it doesn't appear in every other game haxing people out, i think thats an absolutely fair way to see it. You aren't gonna be out here opening DPP games and seeing machamp blast everybody's ass apart, however, it can absolutely bullshit out certain game scenarios. But let's call a spade a spade and understand that's the whole point from both and that there's no need to be shitting on each other when both sides clearly make sense(casually bullying teal for asking a genuine question btw, one that isn't unreasonable at all. s/o dbgoat and cabal for actually responding)

I also overall kinda agree that Jirachi is what needs to be looked into more and since I personally believe both sides are fair, I'm fine with whichever result comes from the suspect, as long as the voters are actually thinking for themselves.

I used to be completely opposed to this, but I think the best move forward is, genuinely, banning iron head from Jirachi. It's kinda always been something pushed by the playerbase that is denied by the higher ups. But we have a problem here. This tier has an exception case that needs to be dealt with differently. We have a small ass community and people just wanna enjoy the game. Gatekeeping the best way of improving the tier for the sake of policy is not worth it.

It's literally the only thing you can do too btw, because banning Jirachi entirely is asinine and would need an entire metagame shift of bans. It's also a perfectly fine mon otherwise and, if anything, it would add to more creativivty from Jirachi gamers. I think i've seen enough after iron head/bslam/fire punch/sub 252 hp rachi solod a team after hp ground zone killed lefties tran. Iron head is a ridiculously free click with added leftovers and trying to use something like zen headbutt instead would never be anywhere as consistent with miss chances and 20% instead of 30% pre serene grace, not to mention being literally walled by tyranitar.

Also not opposed to banning Waterfall from Gyara. it's about to be big 2025 let mfs who play the tier enjoy it the way they want. Or, go play this ladder and see what is actually happening before sitting in the armchair and pretending people are insane.

Also while we're at it please unban froslass, super interesting lead that was underutilized and never optimized because the community got collectively hypnotized by excal


DPP: 100,00 outta 100,000, I'll still choose you

I agree with everything you said and posted the same a week ago in this thread, along with the sentiment of everyone else but had my post deleted. Is the secrete to not being censored getting enough up doots and having a good repour? Either way your correct. I hit 1620 ona new acc 82.3 GxE, beat the current #1 in a match and gained .2. I would need like 20 more wins in a row and at that point it is VS other high skill players in a format where the very suspect is BECAUSE the winner is not always indicitive to skill. Idk if you'll see this before it gets deleted again but I am hoping for change next year. Obviously it has to come from within since, well... we are powerless.

 

[Drifting]

Machamp is an unreliable pokemon with low usage that people are terrified of because they misunderstand “luck” as a spontaneous coincidence rather than a reward for people who can maximise the amount of times they put themselves into situations where they get to roll the dice.

Machamp is a wallbreaker, an archetype of pokemon that is most efficient at spending momentum as a currency to generate progress. Pokemon is full of wallbreakers; Mega Medicham, Ursaluna, Crawdaunt, Hoopa-Unbound, or Banded Dnite for another DPP example. There is no situation where you give a wallbreaker enough momentum that you are forced to switch into it, and you end up with the favourable outcome at the end of that turn. That’s not how the archetype works. They are rewarded for good positioning.

Your Zapdos does not have a god-given right to beat Machamp 1v1, and to imply this is to misunderstand how the game works. It’s like switching a hippo into a banded dnite and complaining that you made the “correct play” by switching your physical wall into the physical attacker, or spamming Recover on a pokemon clicking Ice Beam and calling it hax if you get frozen or crit. If you switch your Zapdos into Dynamic Punch and have to roll for confusion only twice, it’s a 25% chance you end up with a favourable outcome. This is not bullshit coinflips, it’s simply basic probability management. If anything, Machamp is generous in that even if you play incorrectly into it there’s still a decent chance you don’t get punished for it and that weakness is probably why Machamp doesn’t get used very much.

It reminds me of when people use teams that have no water resist and complain when their Skarmory gets flinched, or when Gengar Focus Blast misses Ttar and they act like the incredible power of the move shouldn’t have drawbacks. People love to use the presence of RNG as a scapegoat to avoid accountability for the decisions they make both in the builder and in the game. Machamp simply seems to be the latest victim of this mindset.

As for counterplay, checking Machamp offensively isn’t really that difficult, but everyone already knows that Machamp’s best matchups are into slower, defensive teams (as it should be, considering once again that the pokemon is a wallbreaker), but there is a myth that defensive teams have no counterplay and must opt into flipping coins every turn. Contrarily, something like switching to Zap on Dynamic Punch, taking 15, and then switching to something like Rachi on Ice Punch is an easy way to turn the tables and start threatening Machamp in return. Obviously the Machamp can out-predict you by going for another Dynamic Punch or a sub or something as a hard read, but at that point welcome to Pokemon I guess. Wallbreakers with momentum can make greedy plays vs slow teams. Something like idk, Mixgon, clicking sub on a switch will also do major damage, that’s not a Machamp thing.

Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter if Machamp gets banned or not, as the meta will hardly change either way, even if losing something good into top nuisance mons like Clef and Ttar is a bit sad. But if we’re being honest with ourselves there’s not really a reason this pokemon has to go. It’s clearly not overpowered and inflicting debuffs that create a recurring chance you miss your turn isn’t inherently uncompetitive unless we’re saying that paralysis is uncompetitive, which you can believe if you want, but as I’m sure most of us agree is a minority opinion and a misunderstanding of the nature of probability, momentum and playing for short-term vs long-term benefits.

tl;dr do not ban

 

[johnnyg2]

Honestly this was fucking MISERABLE (I am so sorry to everyone laddering I definitely tilted hard lol) and I like laddering. I got to 84.9 3 separate times and then lost. It also took me a long time to find the time to actually play 130 or so games of sweaty ass stall or balance (this was my second account). Couple of things:

1. I genuinely think this is impossible to do w solely offense. Like the Latias suspect 6 years ago, I first tried to do this w solely offense. I’m a way better player now, and I couldn’t win (I could win like 80%+ but then I’d miss a fire blast on a Bronzong or something) consistently enough to pull it off. I played a few games of offense to start and get past the crap you see on low ladder and then swapped over to a mix of balance and stall to finish. If y’all did this w offense alone you’re just way better than me.

2. This challenge convinced me that there is nothing wrong w Dpp. The amount of times my rachi got crit, failed to get the 60% for slam or iron head, or was just too damn weak to pull it off was insane. I also think champ is dumb but fine. The only time I lost to champ w any team was when it got through my skarm w 3 consecutive confusions. I largely agree w August’s and Bruno’s great posts.

3. The ladder is pretty awful rn, but it is very competitive. I faced so much balance. Of the 18 times I lost on this account, about half of my loses were me fucking up, one was a dc, and the others were just abject insane bad luck. The amount of horrible luck I got truly broke me at times. I think that’s just the definition of Dpp though. I love this tier.

looking forward to voting (and if I gotta do the account thing excal did just lemme know)