It’s Swaggerificc!
An attempt at getting suspect requirements with only Swagger, Thunder Wave, Substitute and Foul Play.
Before I start this, let me say to anyone that has met Dogingmaker or Swaggerificc on the OU or OU Suspect ladder, I understand your pain. One of the reasons I did this was to provide evidence as to the uncompetitiveness of Swagger/Foul Play.
There has been renewed discussion on the competitiveness of Swagger/Foul Play with the introduction of Klefki into the OU metagame. It comes up frequently in the Klefki’s OU thread and has recently spawned discussion on whether it should be banned in tournaments. I sought out to scientifically assess the viability of such a strategy.
The team
As you can see, fairly standard stuff here. The EVs can probably be made more efficient but I didn’t think it’d matter very much anyway. Each member of the team has Swagger, Foul Play and Substitute. Sableye has Recover instead of Thunder Wave because it doesn’t learn Thunder Wave.
The Strategy
I had to design a strategy that was set in stone before I embarked on this adventure. My strategy is a process that reduces Pokemon down to mechanical fundamentals. You will find no prediction, no mind-games and no intuition here.
The Results
I managed to peak at 1579 ELO on the OU ladder and 1325 ELO on the OU (Suspect Test) ladder. There’s some variance as to be expected with using such a strategy. What surprised me, however, was the consistency of it. The sample size might be too small but the strategy managed to consistently stay around an average of 1400 in OU and 1200 in OU Suspect.
Contrary to popular belief, this team does get legitimate wins more often than illegitimate ones. However, I indeed did experience a higher rate of first 5 turn forfeits than whilst playing normally. Unfortunately I didn’t keep track of this data so I cannot give statistics for this phenomenon.
Potential Improvements
The strategy was designed to be flawed but easy to follow to prove a point. The team can be easily improved without too much added difficulty in decision making. Here are some suggestions if you want to try this yourself:
Ditto: Ditto can come in on an opponent’s boosted sweeper and proceed to clean up the opposing team.
Faster Wallbreakers: The main hindrances to this strategy are Physical Walls or Special Walls with low Attack (Gliscor, Chansey, Blissey, Clefable, Wigglytuff, Skarmory). Wallbreakers or setup sweepers can blow past these walls and potentially clean due to paralysis slowing everything down.
Gothitelle: Gothitelle can eliminate most of the above threats (except Chansey) with a specs set.
The Rage Factor
It has to be said that this strategy can bring out the worst in people. I’ll make a note here that I make an effort to never talk in battles. I take this same mindset to all competitive games I play since it saves me from getting trolled and also serves to prevent inciting my opponent. The most you’ll usually see out of me is a “gg” at the end of a game but I refrained from even doing that in these matches.
Yet there have been an innumerable amount of insults levelled against me including but not limited to: my sexuality, my mother, my social life and my skill. If you want to see the full chat logs, they are here:
http://pastebin.com/S9hcnY7F
http://pastebin.com/kT7S6Uka
http://pastebin.com/fzVY5bgW
There’s probably some showdown rule they’re breaking but I do understand where they’re all coming from. When you play as many games as I have with this team, you realise that random is random but more often than not, it's in your favour.
The other thing this strategy draws out is timer-stalling. Whilst I can understand the need to vent frustration via insults, timer stalling is abusing Showdown's design. I have logs of all the games so if any PS Admins want to investigate this, send me a PM for them.
My Personal Thoughts
The strategy is extremely potent for the level of skill involved. If I added in the above improvements, I have little doubt that achieving suspect requirements would have been possible with a good streak.
There are two ways to beat the basic version of this strategy:
I think there’s a legitimate argument in banning this combination in a similar vein to “endless battles”. The battles do eventually have an outcome but for all intents and purposes, they may as well be endless.
TLDR
Ban Swagger + Foul Play.
An attempt at getting suspect requirements with only Swagger, Thunder Wave, Substitute and Foul Play.
Before I start this, let me say to anyone that has met Dogingmaker or Swaggerificc on the OU or OU Suspect ladder, I understand your pain. One of the reasons I did this was to provide evidence as to the uncompetitiveness of Swagger/Foul Play.
There has been renewed discussion on the competitiveness of Swagger/Foul Play with the introduction of Klefki into the OU metagame. It comes up frequently in the Klefki’s OU thread and has recently spawned discussion on whether it should be banned in tournaments. I sought out to scientifically assess the viability of such a strategy.
The team
Thundurus (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Swagger
- Thunder Wave
- Substitute
- Foul Play
Liepard @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Swagger
- Thunder Wave
- Substitute
- Foul Play
Klefki @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 128 Def / 128 SDef
Impish Nature
- Swagger
- Thunder Wave
- Substitute
- Foul Play
Purrloin @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Swagger
- Thunder Wave
- Substitute
- Foul Play
Murkrow @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 Spd / 248 HP / 8 Atk
Jolly Nature
- Swagger
- Thunder Wave
- Substitute
- Foul Play
Sableye @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 Def / 248 HP / 8 Atk
Impish Nature
- Swagger
- Recover
- Substitute
- Foul Play
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Swagger
- Thunder Wave
- Substitute
- Foul Play
Liepard @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Swagger
- Thunder Wave
- Substitute
- Foul Play
Klefki @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 128 Def / 128 SDef
Impish Nature
- Swagger
- Thunder Wave
- Substitute
- Foul Play
Purrloin @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Swagger
- Thunder Wave
- Substitute
- Foul Play
Murkrow @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 Spd / 248 HP / 8 Atk
Jolly Nature
- Swagger
- Thunder Wave
- Substitute
- Foul Play
Sableye @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 Def / 248 HP / 8 Atk
Impish Nature
- Swagger
- Recover
- Substitute
- Foul Play
As you can see, fairly standard stuff here. The EVs can probably be made more efficient but I didn’t think it’d matter very much anyway. Each member of the team has Swagger, Foul Play and Substitute. Sableye has Recover instead of Thunder Wave because it doesn’t learn Thunder Wave.
The Strategy
I had to design a strategy that was set in stone before I embarked on this adventure. My strategy is a process that reduces Pokemon down to mechanical fundamentals. You will find no prediction, no mind-games and no intuition here.
- Assume the enemy has 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 Spe
- Does the enemy have Magic Bounce? Foul Play.
- Does the enemy have a Substitute up? Foul Play.
- Is the opponent slower than me and will I kill it with Foul Play? Foul Play.
- Is the target confused and is the target not Smeargle? Swagger.
- Do I not have a substitute up and is my HP percentage greater than 25? Substitute.
- Is the target not statused? Thunder Wave.
- Do I have less than 50% HP? Recover.
- Foul Play.
The Results
I managed to peak at 1579 ELO on the OU ladder and 1325 ELO on the OU (Suspect Test) ladder. There’s some variance as to be expected with using such a strategy. What surprised me, however, was the consistency of it. The sample size might be too small but the strategy managed to consistently stay around an average of 1400 in OU and 1200 in OU Suspect.
Contrary to popular belief, this team does get legitimate wins more often than illegitimate ones. However, I indeed did experience a higher rate of first 5 turn forfeits than whilst playing normally. Unfortunately I didn’t keep track of this data so I cannot give statistics for this phenomenon.
Potential Improvements
The strategy was designed to be flawed but easy to follow to prove a point. The team can be easily improved without too much added difficulty in decision making. Here are some suggestions if you want to try this yourself:
Ditto: Ditto can come in on an opponent’s boosted sweeper and proceed to clean up the opposing team.
Faster Wallbreakers: The main hindrances to this strategy are Physical Walls or Special Walls with low Attack (Gliscor, Chansey, Blissey, Clefable, Wigglytuff, Skarmory). Wallbreakers or setup sweepers can blow past these walls and potentially clean due to paralysis slowing everything down.
Gothitelle: Gothitelle can eliminate most of the above threats (except Chansey) with a specs set.
The Rage Factor
It has to be said that this strategy can bring out the worst in people. I’ll make a note here that I make an effort to never talk in battles. I take this same mindset to all competitive games I play since it saves me from getting trolled and also serves to prevent inciting my opponent. The most you’ll usually see out of me is a “gg” at the end of a game but I refrained from even doing that in these matches.
Yet there have been an innumerable amount of insults levelled against me including but not limited to: my sexuality, my mother, my social life and my skill. If you want to see the full chat logs, they are here:
http://pastebin.com/S9hcnY7F
http://pastebin.com/kT7S6Uka
http://pastebin.com/fzVY5bgW
There’s probably some showdown rule they’re breaking but I do understand where they’re all coming from. When you play as many games as I have with this team, you realise that random is random but more often than not, it's in your favour.
The other thing this strategy draws out is timer-stalling. Whilst I can understand the need to vent frustration via insults, timer stalling is abusing Showdown's design. I have logs of all the games so if any PS Admins want to investigate this, send me a PM for them.
My Personal Thoughts
The strategy is extremely potent for the level of skill involved. If I added in the above improvements, I have little doubt that achieving suspect requirements would have been possible with a good streak.
There are two ways to beat the basic version of this strategy:
- Go YOLO mode and attack. If you go this route you will have faster games but you will lose on average. Trust me, the statistics are against you.
- PP stall by switching. I can say that in games that went longer than 100 turns, I always lost. Since I don’t switch at all and follow the above strategy, PP stalling is the easiest way to win. However, “easiest” is subjective at best since the opponent will subject both players to a 30 minute stall fest.
I think there’s a legitimate argument in banning this combination in a similar vein to “endless battles”. The battles do eventually have an outcome but for all intents and purposes, they may as well be endless.
TLDR
Ban Swagger + Foul Play.
