Fixing two issues in ADV NU (BP and Luck Items)

[quziel]

Full-Pass teams have sorta been hiding in the background of NUPL to try to fish wins when players and builders are feeling particularly lazy during a week. To be clear, they aren't really amazing, and struggle significantly into boom-heavy teams, which are fairly solid in ADVNU, but they exist, and make ADVNU more boring to watch, play, and prep for, and really don't add anything to the tier. That said, Baton Pass is still a very relevant move in ADV NU, as it makes Mawile into a proper pivot, and helps out Flareon and Plusle exert pressure by pivoting, so a full ban of the move makes little sense in the context of this tier.

Luck items are a bit out of favor atm, as Glalie, the only mon they're really used on, has transitioned to specially defensive, or just bulky sets in general, but they still also just reduce the quality of the tier, and offer no real upside.

I propose transferring ADV OU's Baton Pass clause, "One Boost Passer Clause: Limit one Baton Passer that has a way to boost its stats", to ADV NU, and banning Luck items from the tier.

Editing in some replays from Stockings, as they've gratefully pm'd me them:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3nu-676927
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3nu-884386935

 

[Togkey]

This has been something discussed among ADV NU players for a while now and was just never written up (until now). We want tiering transitivity on a teamstyle that transcends tiers and generations and is broken and/or uncompetitive (Baton Pass chains) . Luck Based items are in a similar boat; they're banned everywhere else and do nothing but enable variance that can let the better player lose, something that is completely in our control and has been dealt with in other tiers and generations as well. I'm not a top name in ADV NU (too busy farming BW and SS) but I absolutely adore the tier, I'm very knowledgeable of it, and play it whenever I can (weeks that don't matter in NU teamtours and ALTPL). These aspects of the tier aren't truly ruining its health or anything, but its no hot take to say that luck-based items and full Baton Pass chain teams are inherently worse for any tier that they're in.

 

[Bughouse]

1) I'm fine with porting OU BP clause to NU. Technically the Mean Look component is extraneous since there's no legal user, but Ariados does get Spider Web Pass, so I guess that's fine to keep in the clause. And more importantly the statboosting part is what actually matters.

2) Brightpowder and Lax Incense are already currently banned, have you tried to use it recently?

This is the only luck item that was ever seeing somewhat frequent use in ADV NU (and yes, in particular on Glalie). The item is already gone. I'm fine with that.

Are you therefore meaning to ban King's Rock and Quick Claw? As far as I know Quick Claw is legal in every single meta so banning it in ADV NU only would seem very bizarre to me. And King's Rock is only banned in metas that have top meta threats who use guaranteed multi-hit moves i.e. due to Skill Link. ADV NU does not have such a threatening user. I'm trying to even think what the use case would be? Beat Up Arbok/Diglett/Murkrow? The other multi hit moves are surely all unreliable and awful for this in ADV and there's no Skill Link to guarantee 5 hits. The mons that learn Beat Up are already physical attackers though and it's not like ADV NU has a Blissey equivalent to target with Beat Up. If the only reason for using it would be the play for low powered flinches... more power to ya.

 

[quziel]

I thought I saw a complaint about it in the NU disc, and as I don't really use Bright Powder, I had assumed it was still legal. That's my mistake, and I should have checked more closely.

 

[Togkey]

I still see stuff like Focus Band and King’s Rock on Pupitar win more games than it should tbh

 

[Ren-chon]

Proxy posting for Stockings

 

[Glue]

Baton Pass is pretty key to ADV NU's metagame.
We have several mons that use it such as Flareon, Plusle, Mawile and Venomoth.
I am fine with OU's Baton Pass clause to be implemented into ADV NU as long we don't nerf dry passing.

 

[Togkey]

Proxy-Posting for PichuFlash (is this really something badges should gatekeep)

To those unfamiliar, I am PichuFlash, I run a discord server dedicated to ADV NU and its meta development and I am a tournament player who has participated in and built for NUPL X, Jabba's NU open, and ALTPL.



Regarding evasion items (bright powder), yes, they are already banned. I do not have any argument to justify their allowance. In this tier and any other tier they just add variability and undercut skill.



However, I believe that full chains in this tier do not warrant restriction- at least not as strict as OU's clause.

Unlike evasion items, baton pass varies greatly in viability depending on the tier and generation. In NU, baton pass is significantly worse than in OU. We have nothing remotely as good as ninjask, we have no celebi. ADV NU baton pass chains necessitate calm mind delcatty- a thoroughly mediocre mon, on every bp build.

The tier also naturally has many ways to thwart BP and make it an unreliable way to MU fish in tour (last ADVPL Jisoo's use of baton pass comes to mind). As Quziel mentioned, boom spam is very common. Boom spam can quickly make bp chains fall apart if piloted aggressively. Additionally, 4th move fillers on some CB birds (golbat, murkrow) and haunter can very easily be haze to ruin BP effortlessly. As a lead, something like taunt glalie can stop BP from getting off the ground. In the mid-game a roar wailord (doesn't need to be dedicated mono-water rest talk, roar is a good 4th move filler on 3 attacks on certaIn spike stack teams) can force the opponent to run to their octillery prematurely and ruin the chain. Haunter can run salac berry endure destiny bond, which is already a good set to emergency check things like DD pupitar or weather sweepers. Setup mons like bulk up vigoroth or calm mind sableye can setup early vs BP and force the stat passers to pass into octillery; disrupting the chain and enabling you to chip oct. Basically, I think boom spam can stop chains early, and mid-game there are tools to force the opponent to cut their chain short and run to octillery- and eventually the chain runs out of steam.



Bughouse had mentioned tacking spider web onto the ban list. I do not think this is warranted, especially since ariados is all around bad and is never seen on bp chains which are themselves rare. It's like banning diglett just because trapping is seen as inherently unfair- but NU diglett is decidedly mediocre in practice.



If action on BP is decided, I propose a more conservative approach. Limiting the chain to three stat passers rather than five. This forces someone intending to use baton pass to run delcatty, choose between one defense passer (either mawile or huntail) and one agility passer (ledian, plusle/minun) or salac passer (venomoth). This takes away a lot of flexibility that chains currently have to pass in circles around an opponent. Teams like this could also simply resemble something like petaya pass plusle and petaya pass flareon on special offense, which OU’s rule would make illegal.



In rule making, the less restrictive the rule, the better. As evident by OU’s stepwise approach to limiting baton pass before being obligated to destroy it.



I suggest we take a similar stepwise approach with a decidedly less viable bp archetype.

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

I believe we should tread slowly in the same way OU did and not just fully import their current restrictions as-is. I would argue the only thing remotely potentially broken is full pass a la hot boy stox’s team. Note that it probably appears a bit better than it actually is because no one really brings counterplay to it. Ultimately though, I do think it presents similar matchup based issues that fullpass in OU caused even in a metagame where people start bringing some counterplay.

At this point I would support PichuFlash’s suggestion and limit to 3 passers on a team. That should solve the issue with little to no splash damage on things like plusle and flareon passing boosts which has not been an issue to this point.

 

[Lily]

Proxy posting for Stockings

Proxy-Posting for PichuFlash (is this really something badges should gatekeep)

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/how-to-request-posting-access.3686937/

zero stake in whatever adv nu does, I just wanna remind y'all that this exists specifically for cases like this, proxy posting is not really supposed to be a thing anymore. not really a big deal in this case but it's something to be aware of. tagging Stockings and PichuFlash just so they're aware too