np: OU Suspect Testing Round 4 - Blaze of Glory

[Thorhammer]

If you go by the total doctrine of baning all evasion, we might as well bas accupressure, as it has a small chance to increase evasion. No, thats unacceptable. You don't go banning things in the name of some doctrine, thats flat out ridiculus. Especially when it only breaks pokemon that are really offensive, to be honest, you might as well ban swords dance or dragon dance since it has the capability to break as many pokemon as sand veil and snow cloak. Double team and 1HKO moves a banned for one reason, its not uncompetitiveness, thats something made up recently to justify it with false logic. The truth is they found it annoying, and it created an undesirable metagame everywhere, and they just didn't want it. Go on PBR, and you will quickly find double team is just as competitive as any other boosting move, but you know what? I dont want every single match of mine to be an hour long stall war, and I don't want some of my pokemon randomly killed on the spot. But with sand veil, I might occasionally miss, and lose a game to Garchomp becuase of its offensive power, is that sand viels fault? Partailly, but not all the way, its sand veil in combination with Garchomp, those 2 together make it possibly broken at best.

We're not proposing that everything that causes Evasion should be banned. We're proposing that everything that just causes Evasion should be banned.

For the last time, brokneness could not be less relevant to this discussion. Like so many others here, you're arguing with imaginary opponents who say what you want them to say. Unless you're going to respond to what the actual people here are saying, don't bother posting here. From here on out, I will not give any more posts from you including the word "broken" or any variations the justification of a response, and I encourage everyone else here to take the same stance.

 

[Blackdragonking]

What's Latios got to do with this?

Face it, he's outclassed by something in every niche. He should quite simply not be OU. Whatever he can do, another dragon can do and more.

Whether the others are suspect are not is irrelevant, until and if they are banned.

Granted, Specs Latios can do 100%, but that's only on the max damage roll. It's more likely to do more like 88-90%, assuming bulky DD Dragonite, and will die to Dragonite's outrage. Scarf Latios, which is also fairly common, does 70% at maximum to the same Bulky DD set. Haxorus pierces Multiscale and so doesn't need to rely on a high damage roll to take Dragonite down. Haxorus has a lot of competition with Garchomp, and Garchomp's unique speed and better defenses mean that most of the time, yes, Garchomp is better. I would like to point out this is not the same as Haxorus being completely outclassed in every niche, as you claim. Although granted, nothing can ever outclass Garchomp and Latios at making people bitch about OU.

Haters gonna hate, I suppose.

The main problem with sand veil, which has been pointed out many times, is that it brings unecessary luck into the game. What alexwolf and Thorhammer are getting at is that the sole thing that is brought into the metagame by Sand Veil and Snow Cloak is luck.

Do you use Ice Beam because it freezes? Do you use Stone Edge because you land more crits? Is Thunderbolt a good move because it paralyzes? The answer to all of those questions would be no (to most people, hopefully).

Things like Brightpowder, Lax Incense (lol) and yes, Sand Veil and Snow Cloak, is the definition of uncompetitive because you are relying on luck. That is all that the word means.

Now, whether pokes like Garchomp, Frosslass, etc. are broken is a different matter. The bottom line is, people want to ban these abilities because they think they're unfair.

Not totally banned though, I think a SV+SS ban and a SC+SW ban would suffice, so you could actually use these pokemon outside of their weather (read: Garchomp).

I'm not sure it's going to be so very simple to do things like that. Tyranitar is just one of those pokemon that's EVERYWHERE. You can make a pretty safe bet on running into one pretty regularly with a Garchomp on your team because Tyranitar is just that good. It's not even like you're taking a risk by bringing along Garchomp in hopes your opponent will activate his sand veil; Garchomp's basically flawless without Sand support, so it's not like you're weakening your team by including a devastatingly effective sweeper that gets more deadly when your opponent has a common weather condition up.

 

[Downf4ll]

If you go by the total doctrine of baning all evasion, we might as well bas accupressure, as it has a small chance to increase evasion. No, thats unacceptable. You don't go banning things in the name of some doctrine, thats flat out ridiculus. Especially when it only breaks pokemon that are really offensive, to be honest, you might as well ban swords dance or dragon dance since it has the capability to break as many pokemon as sand veil and snow cloak. Double team and 1HKO moves a banned for one reason, its not uncompetitiveness, thats something made up recently to justify it with false logic. The truth is they found it annoying, and it created an undesirable metagame everywhere, and they just didn't want it. Go on PBR, and you will quickly find double team is just as competitive as any other boosting move, but you know what? I dont want every single match of mine to be an hour long stall war, and I don't want some of my pokemon randomly killed on the spot. But with sand veil, I might occasionally miss, and lose a game to Garchomp becuase of its offensive power, is that sand viels fault? Partailly, but not all the way, its sand veil in combination with Garchomp, those 2 together make it possibly broken at best.

How are DD, SD and other boosting moves broken? If you let people get those boosts it's your fault, and nothing more. Is it your fault that your opponent has a Garchomp? No. Also, I'd agree with the acupressure thing if, you know, the move didn't suck so much ass. One more thing, technically it is Sand Veil's fault entirely, +2 anything is dangerous (because they obviously used the free turn to SD up). Honestly, I hate it when people attempt to be sarcastic smart-asses. It's very annoying and detracts from the subject at hand. I'll stop right there though and get to the point.

Now, I don't know where you get this "doctrine" stuff, but isn't unfairness what every ban is about? Broken, uncompetitive, overcentralized, etc. it's just another way of saying "it's unfair".

Now, you said right up there it created an "undesirable metagame"? That is basically uncompetitiveness. Unfairness. Whatever. As for it being "false logic" I don't see how this train of thought is very false:

Evasion is unfair.
We ban things we deem unfair.
Therefore, Evasion should be banned.

I don't really see where I implanted the falsehood. Sure you can argue that evasion isn't unfair, but that's a horse of another colour isn't it?

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Aparently, my view on why things should be banned is not in the taste of some people, even if its the exact definition of what you ban, but whatever, I degress, becuase I clearly can not win a fight with someone that can delete all my posts with a snap of a finger.

How are DD, SD and other boosting moves broken? If you let people get those boosts it's your fault, and nothing more. Is it your fault that your opponent has a Garchomp? No. Also, I'd agree with the acupressure thing if, you know, the move didn't suck so much ass. One more thing, technically it is Sand Veil's fault entirely, +2 anything is dangerous (because they obviously used the free turn to SD up). Honestly, I hate it when people attempt to be sarcastic smart-asses. It's very annoying and detracts from the subject at hand. I'll stop right there though and get to the point.

Have you ever had an arguement with someone in real life? That is exactly how you have one, you make comparisons to compare logic and reasoning from past actions on compare them to future actions.

Now, I don't know where you get this "doctrine" stuff, but isn't unfairness what every ban is about? Broken, uncompetitive, overcentralized, etc. it's just another way of saying "it's unfair".



Now, you said right up there it created an "undesirable metagame"? That is basically uncompetitiveness. Unfairness. Whatever. As for it being "false logic" I don't see how this train of thought is very false:

Evasion is unfair.
We ban things we deem unfair.
Therefore, Evasion should be banned.

I don't really see where I implanted the falsehood. Sure you can argue that evasion isn't unfair, but that's a horse of another colour isn't it?

(I believe I can use it here) Brokeness is a solid proved point with tests and studying, as with overcentralized. They are facts. Now this unfairness is uncompetitiveness deal with an idea of no luck coming from the other side, that you have no control over, which I believe is a wrongful overextension on the evasion clause. An undesirable metagame is also on opinion, but if its a dam good one, like double team is too anoying and we don't want it, you don't need to truely justify it.

Since when do we ban things that are "unfair?" If its so "unfair" then why don't you use it yourself. Thats like someone saying Salamence or Latios last gen was banned for being unfair, because it wasn't "fair" for them to have an extremely specialized counter for them? The only luck based bans we have, are in my view, used under the premise of undesirable metagame, not "unfairness."

 

[Downf4ll]

Have you ever had an arguement with someone in real life? That is exactly how you have one, you make comparisons to compare logic and reasoning from past actions on compare them to future actions.

That only works when the comparison are valid. Comparing DD and Double Team makes about as much sense as the Giratina and Ferrothorn comparison we had earlier.

(I believe I can use it here) Brokeness is a solid proved point with tests and studying, as with overcentralized. They are facts. Now this unfairness is uncompetitiveness deal with an idea of no luck coming from the other side, that you have no control over, which I believe is a wrongful overextension on the evasion clause. An undesirable metagame is also on opinion, but if its a dam good one, like double team is too anoying and we don't want it, you don't need to truely justify it.

You say this, but you've never actually compared brokenness and centralization with unfairness. "Have you ever had an argument with someone in real life?".

Now, from my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong, or if I missed something) brokenness is a term used to define a pokemon that is either extremely powerful and vastly outclasses other pokemon who do anything even remotely the same (mewtwo vs. any special sweeper), or a pokemon that has virtually no counters (arceus), right?

(Over)Centralization is when everything is focused solely on that one pokemon right? Like, you must run pokemon you would never normally run in order to counter that poke, and then a counter for that poke's counter, etc.

Isn't unfairness just an umbrella term for when something breaks the rules and/or something which is unreasonable?

One more thing; I'd like to justify why we ban something, else it would be very hard to comprehend why someone did it. (even the "annoying" thing is a justification, if not an entirely strong one for today's bans).

Since when do we ban things that are "unfair?" If its so "unfair" then why don't you use it yourself. Thats like someone saying Salamence or Latios last gen was banned for being unfair, because it wasn't "fair" for them to have an extremely specialized counter for them? The only luck based bans we have, are in my view, used under the premise of undesirable metagame, not "unfairness."

We don't use unfair things because when we do they get banned. I thought I made that clear earlier.

I won't pretend I know why Salamence and Latias got banned, I only got into competitive battling in 5th gen after all, but it must have been in some way related to the fact that, if they stayed, it would be very unreasonable.

Now, I have to go, but I'd like to continue this tomorrow. You know, when we're both less snarky.

 

[alexwolf]

If you go by the total doctrine of baning all evasion, we might as well bas accupressure, as it has a small chance to increase evasion. No, thats unacceptable. You don't go banning things in the name of some doctrine, thats flat out ridiculus. Especially when it only breaks pokemon that are really offensive, to be honest, you might as well ban swords dance or dragon dance since it has the capability to break as many pokemon as sand veil and snow cloak. Double team and 1HKO moves a banned for one reason, its not uncompetitiveness, thats something made up recently to justify it with false logic. The truth is they found it annoying, and it created an undesirable metagame everywhere, and they just didn't want it. Go on PBR, and you will quickly find double team is just as competitive as any other boosting move, but you know what? I dont want every single match of mine to be an hour long stall war, and I don't want some of my pokemon randomly killed on the spot. But with sand veil, I might occasionally miss, and lose a game to Garchomp becuase of its offensive power, is that sand viels fault? Partailly, but not all the way, its sand veil in combination with Garchomp, those 2 together make it possibly broken at best.

i am also going to tell you this for the last time.
the matter here is not brokeness but uncompetitiveness!
don't tell us if sand veil breaks or not some pokes because this is not the point which we are talking about...
and where is even the smallest similiraity to swords dance or dragon dance...they raise your attack and your speed....what does this have to uncompetitiveness???again we are not arguing if sand veil is broken.we are arguing about that it is uncompetitive!
you say that double team was banned because it was annoying and because it created an undesirable metagame.what do you mean annoying?if by annoying you mean something that itroduces only unecessary luck to the metagame then you are right.that's the problem with sand veil also...so let us know...what do u mean annoying???you also say that they were banned 'cause none wanted their games to last very long...if that was the case stall based teams would have already been banned.do you know how much a fight against a heavy stall team can last???does this makes stall uncompetitive and undesirable.of course no...
the only reason that these moves were banned was 'cause they added nothing but luck to the metagame.and 'cause we are a competitive community we didn't want an element which adds only luck to a game revolving around strategy.so simple!
that's what sand veil also does exactly!brings only hax to the metagame!

Aparently, my view on why things should be banned is not in the taste of some people, even if its the exact definition of what you ban, but whatever, I degress, becuase I clearly can not win a fight with someone that can delete all my posts with a snap of a finger.

apparently your view on things that should be banned is not in the taste of the people who banned evasion raising moves.you must get that evasion raising moves were banned due to uncompetitiveness!they weren't banned because everyone said 'oh i don't want my battes to last 1 hour'...that is not even an argumement...the battle will last as long as it takes for it to be won.again if that was the case(banned 'cause we dind't want our battles to last long)stall as a playstyle would have been banned long ago...

(I believe I can use it here) Brokeness is a solid proved point with tests and studying, as with overcentralized. They are facts. Now this unfairness is uncompetitiveness deal with an idea of no luck coming from the other side, that you have no control over, which I believe is a wrongful overextension on the evasion clause. An undesirable metagame is also on opinion, but if its a dam good one, like double team is too anoying and we don't want it, you don't need to truely justify it.

this uncompetitiveness that we are talking about is the reason why the evasion clause exists!

Since when do we ban things that are "unfair?" If its so "unfair" then why don't you use it yourself. Thats like someone saying Salamence or Latios last gen was banned for being unfair, because it wasn't "fair" for them to have an extremely specialized counter for them? The only luck based bans we have, are in my view, used under the premise of undesirable metagame, not "unfairness."

so be it...so explain to us what do you mean by undesirable???

I'm not sure it's going to be so very simple to do things like that. Tyranitar is just one of those pokemon that's EVERYWHERE. You can make a pretty safe bet on running into one pretty regularly with a Garchomp on your team because Tyranitar is just that good. It's not even like you're taking a risk by bringing along Garchomp in hopes your opponent will activate his sand veil; Garchomp's basically flawless without Sand support, so it's not like you're weakening your team by including a devastatingly effective sweeper that gets more deadly when your opponent has a common weather condition up.

yes but if this ban happens you think that people will continue whoring on garchomp?you think that people will still try to exploit this uncompetitive factor?of course no...subchomps popularity will be severly decreased so the problem will be definitely smaller...
and even if this(decrease of subchomps popularity) doesn't happen let's see the statistics:
if i remember well about 25% of all teams use sand(not exactly since a team can have tyranitar and hippowdon at the same time but anyway).so instead of sand veil working 80%(the other 20% is when playing against weather teams,sun and rain,which are not even assured that they will have their weather up when the sand veil abuser will come in)now with the ban it will only work 25% of the time!isn't this a lot better???it's not perfect sure but it is as perfect as we can get...

 

[Gerard]

Now, i don't have problems (an it neves sweep me but it sometimes did kill 1-2 (one time 4) pokes because of the evasion, while NOW it does not give me trouble it use to, i still feel the haxy evasion, on gen 5 UU on the other side i don't even see it, hell in PO's LU i haven't see it once so i guess that's not imortant now, i just wanted to point out that uncompetitivness is equal no matter if the poke is not OU viable since there are other tiers for those self-centered OU players

 

[DetroitLolcat]

About this banning hax abilities crap:

We're not looking for "competitiveness" or some crap. The point of the suspect test is to ban the broken stuff. We're not to deem teh abilities uncompetitive. Moody was banned because it relied so heavily on luck that it could allow a Bidoof to sweep. That's broken. Brightpowder and Lax Incense are banned because they're "uncompetitive". But were they broken?

Think about it, the OU tier is for the best non-broken Pokemon, abilities, and items. Did Brightpowder/Lax Incense overwhelm the metagame? No. Therefore, did they break the metagame? No. Should they be banned? No. If a combination of Brightpowder, Sand Veil, and Garchomp were broken, then ban Garchomp, not the stuff that made him broken. If Magnezone (getting rid of Scizor) made Salamence broken last gen, did we ban Magnezone? No, we got the thing that was broken, Mence. Why should we change that process?

We have to look at if something's broken before banning it.

 

[alexwolf]

About this banning hax abilities crap:

We're not looking for "competitiveness" or some crap. The point of the suspect test is to ban the broken stuff. We're not to deem teh abilities uncompetitive. Moody was banned because it relied so heavily on luck that it could allow a Bidoof to sweep. That's broken. Brightpowder and Lax Incense are banned because they're "uncompetitive". But were they broken?

Think about it, the OU tier is for the best non-broken Pokemon, abilities, and items. Did Brightpowder/Lax Incense overwhelm the metagame? No. Therefore, did they break the metagame? No. Should they be banned? No. If a combination of Brightpowder, Sand Veil, and Garchomp were broken, then ban Garchomp, not the stuff that made him broken. If Magnezone (getting rid of Scizor) made Salamence broken last gen, did we ban Magnezone? No, we got the thing that was broken, Mence. Why should we change that process?

We have to look at if something's broken before banning it.

so why double team was banned?because it was broken on everything right?well try to convince us about that.but if you can't it means that in fact bans happen due to uncompetitiveness(or at least that's what the majority thinks) and that's all i care about.if i want to pass my opinions on a matter i don't have to convince everyone just the majority.

and finally as everyone you defintely have the right to tell us your opinion even if it is against what majority thinks,but you certainly don't have the right to insult other people's opinions by saying them crap...!

 

[SJCrew]

so why double team was banned?because it was broken on everything right?

Not everything, just a lot of things. Even if the sample size for effective Double Team abusers were about as small as Moody's, it's enough to say that we'd rather ban the singular culprit than multiple Pokemon with the potential to be broken under that one common denominator.

Oh, and imagine the nightmares you'd accrue by nightfall with Baton Pass teams based around Evasion. The very thought of it makes me want to give up Pokemon and reevaluate my life.

 

[ensoriki]

so why double team was banned?

3/5 chance of hitting at +2 1/3 chance at hitting at +6.
A 2hko pokemon could take 6 turns to kill just attacking them.
Evasions too powerful (and random) to be in the metagame when the counters that exist for it are 1. not given out enough 2. not strong enough for the overall game and 3. some "counters" aren't reliable like Taunt or substitute since they can miss too.

 

[XienZo]

Evasion really isn't that powerful though. You'd get less damage if you just spammed Cosmic Power all the time instead.

 

[Virizion]

Evasion really isn't that powerful though. You'd get less damage if you just spammed Cosmic Power all the time instead.

Clefable used Cosmic Power!
Metagross used Meteor Mash!
IT'S A CRITICAL HIT!
(And to make matters worse..) Metagross' Attack rose!

 

[XienZo]

Clefable used Cosmic Power!
Metagross used Meteor Mash!
IT'S A CRITICAL HIT!
(And to make matters worse..) Metagross' Attack rose!

Clefable used Minimize!
Metagross used Meteor Mash!
Metagross' Attack rose!


Like, crits are still less likely than +6 evasion hits. And if the RNG hates you THAT badly, it's going to screw you over no matter what you do anyway.

 

[Virizion]

Clefable used Minimize!
Metagross used Meteor Mash!
Metagross' Attack rose!


Like, crits are still less likely than +6 evasion hits. And if the RNG hates you THAT badly, it's going to screw you over no matter what you do anyway.

You were saying how CP is just as good defensively, but I imagine a Crit would KO Clefable - A normal Meteor Mash hitting +6 Evasion Clefable isn't a big deal; you'll just miss next turn while it Softboileds.

 

[XienZo]

You were saying how CP is just as good defensively, but I imagine a Crit would KO Clefable - A normal Meteor Mash hitting +6 Evasion Clefable isn't a big deal; you'll just miss next turn while it Softboileds.

A crit has the exact same chance(1/16) as hitting through +6 Evasion twice(1/4 x 1/4).

Edit:

Scratch that, a crit is more unlikely since +6 Evasion has a 1/3rd chance to hit through.

 

[Woodchuck]

I always thought evasion was banned because it took the game out of the hands of the players and placed more weight on how lucky you got; it wasn't necessarily that it was broken, it was that it turned pokemon into more of a dice-rolling game than a competitive game.

 

[Yoshiken]

So the question becomes whether or not Garchomp does this to a reasonable extent?
^-- Just want to draw some attention to that part. Why was Double Team banned? Because it was entirely luck-based and a lot of Pokemon could use it. (Also, lolbatonpass)
Why were Brightpowder/Lax Incense banned? Probably because they were entirely luck-based and everything could use them.

But then, why are things like HaxRachi allowed, then? Why do people choose low accuracy moves? Why are items like Quick Claw and King's Rock allowed? Probably because the extent they change the metagame isn't great enough for them to matter.
The same applies to Sand Veil/Snow Cloak. They're specific to a select few Pokemon and they don't change things that much - Garchomp still loses to an Ice-type attack 4/5 times. (Compare to, say, Excadrill in sand, which needs a VERY specific counter.) If Garchomp is broken because of that 20% chance of missing, then yes, question it. But how competitive/luck-based it is should only come into play when it is to a notable degree, and, having run Garchomp a few times lately, I cannot see it as being to so great an extent that it should be deemed uncompetitive/unfair.
Also, going back to the King's Rock/Quick Claw idea here. Those have specific counters (Inner Focus/priority moves respectively) and are otherwise luck-based but unreliable. Evasion-boosts have specific counters (perfect accuracy moves/No Guard) and are otherwise luck-based but unreliable (as long as they cannot be stacked).
And to those saying "So why was Brightpowder/Incense banned?!", I personally don't know. I cannot see a good reason for banning them, and would say it's probably to avoid a complex ban ("You're allowed Sand Veil/Snow Cloak or Brightpowder/Incense, but not both!") and to avoid too much evasion dictating the course of a battle.

 

[Pallas Athena]

I am currently of the opinion that the entire Sand Veil/Snow Cloak thing is just a continuation of the Great Smogon Witch Trials against HAX. Honestly, only two (one never uses the ability) Pokemon with the abilities are OU. Compare this to the only other ability bans ever, where Inconsistent had several widely used Pokemon and was rightfully banned (if you want to dispute it, you didn't play in Round One). Drizzle+SS was only implanted to salvage several still viable playstyle from getting banned, and Swift Swimmers had several Pokemon who were used and broken just for thier ability, as shown by thier subsequent fall to UU. Compare this to SC/SV, where only one Pokemon is ever cited, and he still isn't entirely broken or controlling the metagame. We are banning SS/SV just because people find some luck annoying. It's annoying, yes, but no reason to toss several UU mons to ubers. Ban if it is broken. If one looks at the usage stats, SC/SV are not, and the reasons to ban them are much more arbitrary than the other ability bans which were only used to keep multiple Pokemon broken only for one ability from being sent to Ubers. It's just an obsessive witch hunt against an unreal threat. I hope people are mature enough to actually realize when it's time for the banning and paranoia of luck to stop. We've tolerated it for two full generations. And then we ban something luck related. It's just a temporary witch hunt with little to no basis. If you have a legitimate claim, it can only be against one Pokemon, who traditionally would be handled as a suspect Pokemon.

 

[Thorhammer]

Honestly, only two (one never uses the ability) Pokemon with the abilities are OU.

This is where your statements lost all credibility and relevance. Please obtain an understanding of the topic being discussed in its entirety before attempting to argue it.

 

[Pallas Athena]

This is where your statements lost all credibility and relevance. Please obtain an understanding of the topic being discussed in its entirety before attempting to argue it.

I fail to see what you are noticing that I am not. Garchomp is the main culprit, and I guess some Gliscor might do it occasionally. There are others who could abuse it (Frosslass, Cacturne), but the fact that they failed to gain very much popularity at all shows that they really aren't overly good and certainly not powerul enough to be considered broken by any means. Gliscor just has a much better ability. As for Garchomp, one Pokemon doesn't warrant an ability ban. I thought that the other UU abusers were irrelevant due to thier lack of use and power. If you wouldn't mind telling me where I made an error, please do so.

 

[Yoshiken]

I think the missed point is meant to be that people aren't arguing that it's broken, just that it's not competitive/fair.
That said, I don't think we should be banning something that's rarely (ab)used - if Garchomp is broken with the ability, then let's look at Garchomp and not some ability that doesn't do much other than encourage perfect/higher accuracy attacks.

 

[Downf4ll]

I always thought evasion was banned because it took the game out of the hands of the players and placed more weight on how lucky you got; it wasn't necessarily that it was broken, it was that it turned pokemon into more of a dice-rolling game than a competitive game.

Yep, that's it. This is literally all there is to the argument for banning SS+SV.

I don't know why people opposing focus more on our word choice than what we're actually trying to say. Quite annoying actually.

So the question becomes whether or not Garchomp does this to a reasonable extent?
^-- Just want to draw some attention to that part. Why was Double Team banned? Because it was entirely luck-based and a lot of Pokemon could use it. (Also, lolbatonpass)
Why were Brightpowder/Lax Incense banned? Probably because they were entirely luck-based and everything could use them.

But then, why are things like HaxRachi allowed, then? Why do people choose low accuracy moves? Why are items like Quick Claw and King's Rock allowed? Probably because the extent they change the metagame isn't great enough for them to matter.
The same applies to Sand Veil/Snow Cloak. They're specific to a select few Pokemon and they don't change things that much - Garchomp still loses to an Ice-type attack 4/5 times. (Compare to, say, Excadrill in sand, which needs a VERY specific counter.) If Garchomp is broken because of that 20% chance of missing, then yes, question it. But how competitive/luck-based it is should only come into play when it is to a notable degree, and, having run Garchomp a few times lately, I cannot see it as being to so great an extent that it should be deemed uncompetitive/unfair.
Also, going back to the King's Rock/Quick Claw idea here. Those have specific counters (Inner Focus/priority moves respectively) and are otherwise luck-based but unreliable. Evasion-boosts have specific counters (perfect accuracy moves/No Guard) and are otherwise luck-based but unreliable (as long as they cannot be stacked).
And to those saying "So why was Brightpowder/Incense banned?!", I personally don't know. I cannot see a good reason for banning them, and would say it's probably to avoid a complex ban ("You're allowed Sand Veil/Snow Cloak or Brightpowder/Incense, but not both!") and to avoid too much evasion dictating the course of a battle.

Yay, someone who actually has an argument!

Well first of all to address why they banned brightpowder/incense; it was apparently an extension of the evasion clause. Whether it's justified or not isn't what I'll be discussing though.

Now, according to smogon's stats, Garchomp is used for almost 1 in 5 battles, and Sand Veil is used more than that. What about Rachi+Togekiss combined? That's about 13%. This generally means Garchomp alone is a bigger issue than the two (not that I advocate banning them).

Now i wish there was UU stats, but unfortunately there isn't so I can't say much about the other SV/SC abusers.

Even completely disregarding usage stats, Garchomp is a much bigger issue than HaxRachi, simply because you can control whether you're affected by it or not. Just switch out. If you end up having no priority, no status absorber, no ground type poke (for t-wave), no ghost type poke (for body slam) and no pokes faster than base 100 speed, and all of your pokes were t-waved, then at that point it's your fault. You've been outplayed. In the end, even HaxRachi isn't completely luck based; you still have some semblance of control.

What can you do to counter Sand Veil (I'm not even going to kid myself here, what I mean by that is Garchomp)? A weather inducer that isn't Tyranitar/Hippowdon. Even then, they've done their job by making you not attack at a critical moment. There is no control; no way to outplay him. You either do the dice roll or bring in another weather.Either way your end up losing a crap-ton, if not all of your pokes. To what, luck? pretty much.

King's Rock and Quick Claw are a completely different matter; while they are based solely on luck, one flinch and maybe going first isn't going to cost a match. Missing against a Garchomp will though. In fact, running another item would end up being more beneficial than either of them. SC and SV pokes don't have that problem, because it's an ability. There is no speed clause, and definitely no flinching clause (that I'm aware of), so that means they don't deserve the sack.

 

[Yoshiken]

Well first of all to address why they banned brightpowder/incense; it was apparently an extension of the evasion clause. Whether it's justified or not isn't what I'll be discussing though.
In this case, are we talking about a Garchomp ban specifically, and not Sand Veil/Snow Cloak?

Now, according to smogon's stats, Garchomp is used for almost 1 in 5 battles, and Sand Veil is used more than that. What about Rachi+Togekiss combined? That's about 13%. This generally means Garchomp alone is a bigger issue than the two (not that I advocate banning them).
To be fair, Garchomp is a better Pokemon on stats. If Rachi/Kiss had Garchomp-esque stats and their current movesets/abilities, I'm sure their usage would fly up.

[...]
Even completely disregarding usage stats, Garchomp is a much bigger issue than HaxRachi, simply because you can control whether you're affected by it or not. Just switch out. If you end up having no priority, no status absorber, no ground type poke (for t-wave), no ghost type poke (for body slam) and no pokes faster than base 100 speed, and all of your pokes were t-waved, then at that point it's your fault. You've been outplayed. In the end, even HaxRachi isn't completely luck based; you still have some semblance of control.
The problem with HaxRachi, at least, is that it always has an alternative. It's still luck-based whether or not that 60% flinch on Iron Head kicks in, and each of those answers (except Priority) loses to another aspect of HaxRachi (Status absorbers can still flinch, Inner Focus can be statused, Ground types can be Body Slammed, Ghosts can be T-Waved, and both of those can be flinched. All it takes is HaxRachi coming in after a KO on something slower and setting up from there, and it has enough variety to make it a problem.)

What can you do to counter Sand Veil (I'm not even going to kid myself here, what I mean by that is Garchomp)? A weather inducer that isn't Tyranitar/Hippowdon. Even then, they've done their job by making you not attack at a critical moment. There is no control; no way to outplay him. You either do the dice roll or bring in another weather.Either way your end up losing a crap-ton, if not all of your pokes. To what, luck? pretty much.
There are other answers, for all that they're not perfect. Perfect accuracy moves exist (with Togekiss and Lucario probably being the obvious examples) and No Guard Machamp is a beautiful answer to it. Then, of course, you can Encore the Sub sets (I've been doing this a lot, it works wonders.) Not to mention, of course, that this is all to avoid a 20% chance - Garchomp's ability rarely kicks in, these are just ways to change that 'rarely' into 'never'.

King's Rock and Quick Claw are a completely different matter; while they are based solely on luck, one flinch and maybe going first isn't going to cost a match. Missing against a Garchomp will though. In fact, running another item would end up being more beneficial than either of them. SC and SV pokes don't have that problem, because it's an ability. There is no speed clause, and definitely no flinching clause (that I'm aware of), so that means they don't deserve the sack.
Except now I'm going to ask you to either a) justify Brightpowder/Incense ban (since that's the Clause you're basing your argument on) or b) argue that Garchomp specifically is broken, because citing the clause as the reason causes a whole lot of problems (as has been said, banning under the clause means losing all of them in older gens too.) Also, just gonna say that one lucky Rock/Claw activation could easily swing the course of a game - turn that 2HKO into an effective OHKO?

Answered in bold.

 

[alphatron]

If the arguement is that we need to rinse the metagame of uncompetitive qualities, shouldn't we dispose of ALL hax inducing items? Quick Claw can still lose you games. My +2 garchom could have easily outsped at ohko'd my opponent's glaceon with a sun boosted fire fang. But Glaceon's quick claw activated and garchomp fainted to blizzard.
Or how about my LO +2 Terakion being outsped by Quick Claw Steelix and ohko'd with Gyro ball? Losing my sweeper in a situation where I could have easily won just lost me the match. Latios coming in to revenge garchomp with draco meteor? Nope. Quick Claw. Garchomp now proceeds to steamroll through half of my team.

Now that I've given examples of Quick Claw being uncompetitive, I shall now pleed with the majority of you to nominate this (awful) item (whom no one actually uses anyway) and get it banned from the metagame as a whole. It's uncompetitive and removes the entire point of speed in pokemon.

I will disregard any arguements against how bad of an item it is, because I'm not arguing about that. It should be banned solely for being uncompetitive, not for being broken, overpowering, or centralizing. Thinking about it now, getting rid of brightpowder and lax incense was a step in the right direction! So it only makes sense to purge the metagame of ALL competitive qualities while we're at it!

Now for the serious part of my post. Without the use of sand veil, is there anyone out there who can make an example of how garchomp still breaks the game? Unlike Latios, Garchomp actually has several checks this generation in completely new pokemon (and in pokemon who were dropped down from ubers if that counts). But his offensive prowess isn't lacking at all and he's still abnormally effective, as shown by his usage statistics.