Announcement np: SS OU Suspect Process, Round 1 - Boom Boom Pow

[kumiko]

Hi everyone, the OU Tiering Council will be testing the Dynamax (and Gigantamax) mechanic.

The Dynamaxing mechanic is the latest gimmick GameFreak has created, sharing similar traits to Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves from the previous two generations. However, Dynamaxing is an entirely different beast. Should a Pokemon Dynamax, its current HP doubles for three turns, granting any Pokemon with absurd bulk temporarily. Pokemon with x4 weaknesses can shrug off attacks with ease now, due to the buff in their HP. But there's more to Dynamaxing than just the HP buff. Dynamaxing shares similar traits to Z-Moves, but it ups the ante. Dynamaxing grants Pokemon Max Moves, which cap at 150 base power while also having additional side effects, but also lasts for three turns. Similarly to Z-Moves, you can activate them when you please, and its immediate effects last for three turns, while the side effects of its Max Moves can linger beyond that. Just from the descriptions, the buffs are significantly better than what Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves.

In addition to the buffs given, any Pokemon can Dynamax and it does not require an item to utilize. Dynamaxing Pokemon have absurd buffs, and the player has absolute luxury to use them whenever they so please. This allows for an abundance of randomness and a lack of skillful gameplay. While it isn't a straight up guessing game, the sheer randomness and luxury that Dynamaxing presents to a player is quite absurd. Beyond these simple buffs, there are a multitude of other immunities that Dynamax Pokemon have access to. This list includes immunity to: being flinched, being phased out (Roar, Dragon Tail, etc), fainting to Destiny Bond, all weight related moves (Heavy Slam, Low Kick, etc), the effects of Encore, the effects of Disable, and the move lock from Choiced items (boosts from the items disappear while Dynamaxed).

Within the metagame that we've had for a little over two weeks, Dynamax Pokemon have completely ruled the metagame. It's entirely evident to anyone who has played Generation 8 that the centralizing force is, without question, the Dynamax mechanic. A multitude of Pokemon have rose from lower levels of viability to rule the metagame. Due to the fact any Pokemon can Dynamax, there are an extremely high amount of Pokemon which frequently utilize it. The nature of Dynamax prevents there from being a single, or even a handful, of abusers that break the metagame and warrant a suspect test. There are a few abusers that can be pointed out as the most prominent, but it's an exaggeration to label them as such, because there are a multitude of Pokemon that frequently abuse it. Any Pokemon could Dynamax in any given game. Setup sweepers can Dynamax to increase their power, bulk and potentially even get a stat boost; breakers can Dynamax to make their attacks stronger or simply tank an attack that would have otherwise knocked them out; bulkier Pokemon can Dynamax to withstand an attack and net a surprise kill. Throughout the first few weeks of the generation, nearly every Pokemon used has Dynamaxed, for one reason or another.

To briefly go over a few examples of the multitude of Pokemon that can viably run Dynamax:

• Gyarados is the one most people point the finger at, largely due to the effects of its two typings Max Moves. Max Airstream grants Gyarados +1 Speed, which couples incredibly well with Moxie, and Max Geyser summons Rain, which further increases Gyarados power. This, alongside the increase in bulk, make Gyarados incredibly formidable.
• Hawlucha, although it has died down since, is a frightening example. Hawlucha has a multitude of options should it Dynamax. With access to Max Moves, Hawlucha can summon its own Terrain through Thunder Punch, to activate Electric Seed, should it so please. Hawlucha also can run a Mold Breaker set to break stall, to which the speed boost granted from Max Airstream becomes incredibly useful. On top of it all, Max Knuckle moves grant Hawlucha an attack boost, should it get the opportunity to use it.
• Corviknight, due to its incredible bulk, is a surprising behemoth when Dynamaxed. It becomes near impossible to take out in one hit, even should you also Dynamax, due to its incredible natural bulk, coupled with a doubling in HP. The speed boost granted by Max Aistream also gives Corviknight a lot more tools to sweep.
• Galarian Darmanitan, despite losing the boost from Gorilla Tactics should it choose to Dynamax, is a fearsome user. Due to the fact the vast majority of Darmanitans are Gorilla Tactics, they are all choice locked, thus giving plays the opportunity to go to a resist on a locked move. However, it's not that simple. Darmanitan can Dynamax to net a surprise kill on a Pokemon that would wall the move it was locked into, or even to grant an incredible amount of bulk and net a surprise kill against a Pokemon that would otherwise outspeed or kill. Darmanitan can also beat Dugtrio, despite being trapped by Sash + Reversal, by Dynamaxing and using Max Hailstorm, summoning Hail and killing Dugtrio.
• Hydreigon is a potent Dynamax abuser, largely thanks to it gaining Nasty Plot this generation, but also the incredible bulk given by Dynamaxing. While Dynamaxed, Hydreigon can shrug off even 4x effective Fairy-type moves, and knock them out in return with a +2 Max Steelspike. The effects of its moves also have a lot of utility; Max Darkness lowers the opponents SDef and Max Flare sets Sun, further boosting its power, while its other potential moves give it an increase in bulk.
• Togekiss is an unexpected face in OU, but thanks to Dynamaxing, it's a terror in the tier. Beyond the increase in bulk, which makes Togekiss incredibly hard to take down, the speed boost from Max Airstream then allows it to play games with Serene Grace + Air Slash, making it in the Togekiss' favor to flinch any given turn, thus not moving. Togekiss typing and access to Nasty Plot make it good, but Dynamax makes the fact it no longer has Roost forgettable.
• Typical Setup Sweepers
  • Kommo-o, similarly to Hydreigon, can shrug off powerful attacks thanks to the increase in bulk, and has the ability to boost itself and pummel threats with its Max Attacks.
  • Tyranitar already has incredible natural bulk, alongside a boost from Sand, which it sets itself, can increase its bulk even further by Dynamaxing. After a Dragon Dance, a Dynamaxed Tyranitar is truly a powerful threat.
  • Dragapult has absurd speed off the bat, access to Dragon Dance, and an incredible offensive typing, make it a threat to a multitude of teams. Thanks to Sucker Punch, it can even counteract the ever prominent Ditto should Dynamax wear off.
  • Bulky CM Pokemon such as Reuniclus and Hatterene, can Dynamax to increase their already superb natural bulk to absurd levels, and make their boosted attacks take down any potential threats in their way.
  • The Rotom forms all make potentially fearsome Dynamax options, thanks to its newly gained access to Nasty Plot. Rotom-W and Rotom-H can set weather to further boost their STAB moves, and Rotom-F even has found a niche, due to the increase in speed given by its Flying-type STAB.
• Defensive options. There are a vast amount of scenarios where Dynamaxing your Pokemon to net a surprise kill or to survive a specific encounter can be utilized. Reactionary Dynamaxing is extremely potent, even if it the Dynamaxed Pokemon isn't a flashy setup sweeper.
• A multitude of very viable other options exist, but listing all of them fill up the remainder of this post.

However, with all of this in mind, Dynamaxed Pokemon are not by any means an autowin button. Ditto has seen astronomical usage to help counteract all of the potential setup sweepers, and it is a very efficient option for the majority of them. You can also counteract Dynamaxing by either baiting a Dynamax and switching to a resist or immunity, or you can Dynamax yourself to tank an attack and fire back. Should you pull off the latter, your opponent won't be able to Dynamax anymore, and you still came out of the exchange successfully. Pokemon that have Dynamaxed are also not unkillable or unwallable. Even with the incredible increase in bulk, Pokemon can still be hit by Super Effective attacks for massive chunks of their health before they can get going. They are also far from unwallable; setup sweepers in particular can be counteracted by bulky walls, bulky setup mons, or Unaware Pokemon.

Another aspect to consider is the fact that this is this generation's gimmick. Obviously, we play a vastly different game than Nintendo envisions. But to what degree should we deviate from it? Should we accept what Nintendo has created and do what we can to play in it, rather than ban the core mechanic of the generation? We do not wish to argue for this because this will come down to a matter of opinion, but please keep in mind voting ban removes the central part of the generation.

Gigantamax Pokemon, similarly to Dynamax Pokemon, receive all the buffs regular Pokemon do, while also getting access to a special signature move for each Pokemon. See here if you'd like to find out what each move does. The only differences between Dynamaxing and Gigantamaxing are that the Pokemon that can access the latter make up a smaller pool than the former and the names of each are different. There is no reason to tier what is essentially the same thing in the games differently, especially seeing as they both run through the same exact mechanic and functionality in the game itself. If you'd like to read some more discussion on this distinction, you may read these posts from the Dynamax Discussion thread in the Policy Review subforum. Post 1, Post 2, Post 3.

Overall, the Dynamax mechanic is what has everyone has been talking about, what everyone has been paying attention to, and this suspect test is what many have been waiting for. We, the council, believe this mechanic has many incredible aspects, and banning it may potentially lead to the betterment of the metagame. Despite it being the core mechanic of the generation, we wish to have a quality metagame, where the better player wins. Should Dynamax hinder that, we believe it has no business in the tier.

• To achieve voting requisites, you must reach a minimum GXE of 81 with a minimum of 40 games played on the Pokemon Showdown! OverUsed (OU) ladder
• You must signup with a newly registered account on Pokemon Showdown! that begins with the appropriate prefix for the suspect test. For this suspect test, the prefix will be OUTM. For example, I might signup with the ladder account OUTM TDK.
• Laddering with an account that impersonates, mocks, or insults another Smogon user or breaks Pokemon Showdown! rules may be disqualified from voting and infracted. Moderator discretion will be applied here.
• We will be using the regular OU ladder for this suspect. We will not be creating a new Suspect Ladder. At the beginning of every battle, there will be an announcement denoting the ongoing suspect with a link to this thread.
• The aspect being tested, Dynamax Evolutions, will be allowed on the ladder.
• Any form of voting manipulation will result in swift and severe punishment. You are more than welcome to state your argument to as many people as you so please, but do not use any kind of underhanded tactics to get a result you desire. Bribery, blackmail, or any other type of tactic used to sway votes will be handled and sanctioned.
• Do not attempt to cheat the ladder. We will know if you did not actually achieve voting requisites, so don't do it. Harsh sanctions will be applied.
• Unlike previous tests, we will be posting the voting identification thread immediately after this thread. Your voting requisites will be confirmed by a Council member or OU moderator, to which we will edit in confirmation. Please avoid getting more games before getting confirmed.
• The suspect test will last for two weeks from right now, lasting until December 15th at 11:59 pm (GMT-5), and then we will put up the voting thread in the Blind Voting subforum.

This thread will be open to allow all users to share their thoughts on this suspect test and discuss with one another their thoughts. However, this thread will be strictly moderated, moreso than the average OU forum thread. Our moderators will apply discretion as to what is appropriate. Please read and keep in mind the following before posting:

• No one liners nor uninformed posts;
• No discussion on other potential suspects;
• No discussion on the suspect process;
• You are required to make respectful posts;
• You are required to read this thread before posting.
• Failure to follow these simple guidelines will result in your post being deleted and infracted without any prior warning.
• Please also take a moment to read over some suggestions from the OU Council and the OU Moderation team for posting in this thread; adhering these will help out our time moderating the thread and present your arguments better and more educated.
  • Do not argue because it's your favorite Pokemon. This should he common sense, but please don't do this, because we will delete posts like this.
  • You do not need a boatload of experience to have an informed opinion, but please try to minimize the theorymon aspect and use your experiences watching and playing. Playing some on the ladder before posting is plenty if you're concerned about this.
  • Do not flame, belittle, or be disrespectful to users in this thread. While not everyone will read this post in its entirety nor will everyone have informed opinion, please be sure not to be disrespectful. If there's an issue, bring it up to a moderater.
  • Do not use the argument of broken checking broken. Should your argument rest on your opinion that banning the Pokemon or mechanic being tested in this suspect test will make a Pokemon or mechanic broken, overpowered, and/or uncompetitive; don't. If something needs to be banned because of the result this suspect, then so be it.
  • This thread is not to voice complaints about the suspect process or decisions of the council. While we are more than open to hearing complaints that may arise, this isn't the place for it. I suggest you message the OU Council, PM our Tier Leader, Finchinator, or make a post in Senior Staff requests, should you have a badge.

Should you have any questions about the suspect test, feel free to message the OU Council. And if you have any questions about the moderation of this thread, feel free to message the OU Moderation team.

Each member of the OU Council will write up their thoughts on this suspect test, which can all be found in the second post.

Keep in mind that our suspect tests are decided by the community; anyone who achieves voting requisites is allowed to vote. The outcome is up to you. Happy posting and laddering!

 

[Finchinator]

As we did during various suspects last generation, each of the OU Council members will be sharing our personal thoughts on the current suspect in the hope that it sparks good discussion, so feel free to respond to any of our points. If a council member did not submit a paragraph yet, it will be edited in once they write their paragraph in the near future!

ABR

The uses of dynamax apply to any pokemon at any time. No matter what specific mons we try to get rid of (or even more narrowly prevent from dynamaxing), the remaining set of mons that can dynamax will always be problematic. It goes way beyond "Gyarados and Hawlucha are terrifying sweepers due to their dynamax moves." Anything with a choice item has the option of breaking the otherwise abusable lock by activating its dynamax. Any concept of consistency or stability goes out the window when the mon on the losing side of the 1v1 can flip that around with dynamax. For example, you can have a scenario of Diggersby vs Toxapex - the Diggersby user normally can threaten the ohko with earthquake. The question then arises, will the Diggersby dynamax? Will the Toxapex? These questions can arise in an abundance of scenarios and devolve into an unreliable game hyper-focused on the short term.

Beyond comparison to Pokemon as we know it, the existence of dynamax lessens competitive strategy and rewards short term bursts of prediction. Without the thought or planning going into team deduction, set speculation, and how they relate to strategies regarding what beats what, the game cannot meet the standards of our competitive community.

bro fist

I'm usually someone who is in favor of having generation-defining mechanics (permanent weather, mega evolving and z-moves for instance) available for use. I believe that they make the game more fun and create healthy mental, in-game interactions between the players. Dynamaxing is a completely different animal, though. Its introduction brings another chaotic element of randomness and unpredictability to an already volatile game. In my opinion, it creates a near infinite amount of scenarios where the game is taken out of the hands of the players, as they must now account for any of the Pokemon on the opposing team potentially swinging the momentum of the game by dynamaxing. Often times, the only way to respond to dynamax sweepers and their respective moves, speed-boosting ones or otherwise, is by reactively dynamaxing your own Pokemon to prevent a snowball effect. Because this snowball effect can take place in just three turns, and can literally happen with six Pokemon on the opposing team, any and all long-term planning that happens during the course of a game can potentially be flung out the window. We strive to make a metagame that is as competitively balanced and fun as possible and I don't believe that dynamax has a place in that. For these and other reasons pointed out by the council, I am in favor of banning dynamax, and, by extension, gigantimax.

Charmflash

As I got more accustomed to the dynamax ladder I realized that this problem wasn't as black and white as I had initially thought. Dynamax is a new resource at the player's disposal, it isn't inherently overpowered in the same sense a specific Pokemon can be. Moreover, it is a good response to itself if you chose to use it that way. Unfortunately this addition focuses the game flow too much on itself, and prevents players from expressing various skills they've acquired in a significant manner. Short-term prediction is an important part of the game we play, but it shouldn't be overshadowing everything else.

At this point I'd like to give a shoutout to talah for making great points in the policy review thread, and I think that I can speak for the entire council when I say that those kind of posts are exactly what we are looking for when discussing these subjects with the entire community. It is partly due to them, that I was able to see the true nature of dynamax for what it is. Lastly, I think that my concerns regarding an overly passive metagame might have been premature. Even with the removal of dynamax in it's entirety, there will be plenty of powerful offensive tools left in the tier, some perhaps too powerful...

Eo Ut Mortus

Ban Dynamax.

The in-battle skills competitive Pokemon aims to measure can be divided into two components: long-term strategic play and short-term tactical play. In addition to teambuilding/matchup, games should be decided by a combination of these two factors. In other words, we want to reward being able to devise and execute a plan that resists attempts to disrupt it, and we also want to reward being able to make spot decisions and play-by-play adaptations based on the ever-changing game state such that favorable positions cannot just be mindlessly driven to their obvious conclusions. It's important to recognize that both of these aspects are important to the game and that Dynamax is not devoid of skillful expression. The mechanic does, however, devalue long-term strategy to an unacceptable degree.

At the onset of a battle, a player must now account for all the possibilities introduced by Dynamaxing. This includes speed-boosting sweeping sets (Togekiss, Gyarados), defense-boosting breaking sets (Hatterene, Hydreigon), defensive Dynamaxing to impede sweeps (Clefable), and offensive Dynamaxing to enable and augment snowballing tactics (weather-activation, choice lock-breaking). By being able to Dynamax, six Pokemon can impose most, frequently all, of these threats as well as the implicit threat of sets they don't even carry (e.g. Dragapult). It is impractical for a player to account for all these factors in developing a long-term strategy; the snowballing mechanic enabled by Dyanamax makes common information gathering tactics, such as scouting sets or player tendencies (conditioning), a larger risk than ever before. For as long as Dynamax remains an option in-battle, players are forced to shorten the scope under which they plan strategies and generally operate on incomplete information, which, while valid and at times favorable styles of decision-making, should not consistently be the only ones.

We can observe the peak of this problem in the frequency of games that are decided by anticipating a Dynamax sweep and reactively Dynamaxing to stop it. With two opponents of equal skill, this is generally a 50/50 decision, which isn't a new nor intrinsically unhealthy concept. The differences are that the accessibility of Dynamaxing means the frequency of these occurrences is higher than that of traditional game-deciding 50/50s, the snowball mechanic of Dynamaxing means that the cost of an incorrect decision is higher than similar mechanics such as Z-moves, and the one-time aspect of Dynamaxing means that no information can be gathered within the scope of a single battle to help inform a player's decision. In Pokemon, decision-making has always been a balance of risk/reward and informed, predictive play, but these scenarios skew the risk/reward to the point where nothing beyond getting the play correct matters, and such a decision will often be unsubstantiated, especially if forced early in a match.

While I appreciate how Dynamax has introduced a new dimension of gameplay that has opened up more ways for skilled players to distinguish themselves, the costs it comes at are too high. We can continue to find tactical depth in a Dynamaxless game while still preserving the game's other competitive hallmarks.

Finchinator

Dynamax and Gigantamax are now up for a suspect vote, which is the first suspect of generation 8 overused. While they are new mechanics, we have given them a chance to develop as a part of our metagame and we have given our playerbase a chance to adapt to them in any way they believed possible. Despite this, it is clear that after a few weeks of Dynamaxing being present in the metagame that they may not be the most competitive mechanics. First and foremost, they offer an unpredictable 3-turn burst of high power and secondary effects that can go a long way towards deciding the outcome of entire games. Any Pokemon can Dynamax at any time during the battle, making defensive counterplay oftentimes unreliable and sometimes even impossible vs stronger offensive threats. While specific offensive counterplay options such as using Ditto or Dynamaxing your own Pokemon to abuse the increase in HP and potential to stall turns are present in the metagame, they oftentimes derail your own planning within the game or compromise you from the teambuilder. Additionally, the ability to temporarily bypass choice items while taking advantage of the mechanic leads to situations where normal countermeasures are completely invalidated, making some of the strongest and fastest Pokemon the game has to offer even more of a challenge to check and/or counter. Considering this, the element of unpredictability that has never been present to the same degree in a competitive landscape, and the sheer power and positioning presence cause for games to be determined by short spans as opposed to long-term planning and strategy, I believe Dynamaxing should be banned from generation 8 overused.

I also want to add on to this that as a council, we have unanimously elected to tier Dynamaxing and Gigantamaxing the same -- as in, include them both in the same test. This is because they are essentially the same thing, but with a different name due to the smaller pool that applies to the latter. For more justification, see posts in the Policy Review thread on Dynamax here, here, and here.

KratosMana

At the beggining of the gen, I was actually of the opinion that everybody was overrating dynamax. I seriously tried to keep an open mind to it. After actually going through tons of games I can't think the same, though. Dynamax is way too random, powerful, and abusable. And, unlike Z moves, there is barely any risk from using it with almost any Pokémon, at any single turn. This creates way too many hypotheticals, most of which you can't actually do much against. It goes much deeper than "dynamax improves too many sweepers" seeing as, most of the time, people actually utilize dynamax to open the game up for themselves, be it through abusing the side effects of the mechanic, or actually taking care of a Pokémon that poses a threat to your team, defensively or offensively. I've seen people say using dynamax defensively could be one form of dealing with the issue, but the idea is just way too volatile. There are too many situations and side effects to efficiently do it. As an example, we could say that the very common Life Orb Dynamax Clefable set is a check to Dynamax Hawlucha, but one could easily set the Clefable user to a position of which they force the Dynamax out as a bait, switch out Hawlucha, and bring it back later to do what it's meant to do. Not to mention other possibilities like Dugtrio and random moveset techs that end up ridiculous from the insane dynamax boosts. I could even mention the same example as before, but now Hawlucha utilizes Dynamax Dig to boost it's own SpDef on the same turn it attacks Clefable, thus managing to tank a life orb Moonblast while still not losing out on a KO with Max Airstream afterwards.

If we are truly striving for the most competitive metagame possible, I just can't see this mechanic being healthy for our tier. For all of it's over-the-top benefits already stated, I'll do what I can in supporting its ban.

TDK

I believe Dynamax is absolutely absurd. On its own, the buffs it provides are incredible, but the fact that any Pokemon can Dynamax at any point in the battle, as well as the fact it does not require an item to use, makes it insane.

While it's not a straight up mindless guessing game, the intricacies of battles with Dynamax in the equation become straight up silly. Let me ask you this; if every game came down to a Gengar vs Bisharp, where Gengar uses Substitute to avoid Bisharp's Sucker Punch, or to Focus Blast (let's say it's 100% accurate here) on a Knock Off, would you say this is determined by any form of skill? It's not straight up "50/50s", but it by no means is anymore more than a guessing game, where both sides rely on their guts to time things correctly, and one misprediction results in the game ending. This scenario, while extreme, is quite close to how battles work with Dynamax around.

I wrote the vast majority of the OP, as such I'll refrain from reiterating it in its entirety, but I do want to touch on one thing:

In addition to the buffs given, any Pokemon can Dynamax and it does not require an item to utilize. Dynamaxing Pokemon have absurd buffs, and the player has absolute luxury to use them whenever they so please. This allows for an abundance of randomness and a lack of skillful gameplay. While it isn't a straight up guessing game, the sheer randomness and luxury that Dynamaxing presents to a player is quite absurd. Beyond these simple buffs, there are a multitude of other immunities that Dynamax Pokemon have access to. This list includes immunity to: being flinched, being phased out (Roar, Dragon Tail, etc), fainting to Destiny Bond, all weight related moves (Heavy Slam, Low Kick, etc), the effects of Encore, the effects of Disable, and the move lock from Choiced items (boosts from the items disappear while Dynamaxed).

There are two big ones I wanna talk about: phasing and bypassing Choice lock. Phasing immunity is straight up absurd for setup sweepers. Like, for one, you can Dynanmax to preserve your boosts against an obvious potential phaser. But also, it prevents the phaser from being an option in the first place. Things like Hippowdon have to run Yawn to want to counteract Dynamax Pokemon, which has been used specifically because of this. Then there's the Choice lock aspect; the volatility that this aspect brings into the metagame is simply dumb. The Choiced user having the luxury to Dynamax and nail a wall with coverage or switch moves and tank an attack to take out another mon is really silly. There's also the fact that the Choiced user can just double attack, predicting this, or switch out. All of these options. Like, yeah, they're "predictions", but they're really not. Think back to the Gengar and Bisharp example; just because it's a "prediction" doesn't mean the game should be decided off of something like a 50/50.

 

[Finchinator]

We would like to extend a huge thank you to HoeenHero and all of the other coders, developers, and individuals who volunteer hours of their time to making everything possible with the new generation being implemented on PS! You guys have all done a wonderful job and the entire community should be thankful for everything that has been done in order to make this go as smoothly as possible.

 

[Finchinator]

Finally, this thread will be locked for twenty-four hours and this post is reserved. We will unlock this and you may post your thoughts in twenty-four hours. Please use the next day to gather your thoughts and brush up on the forum rules.

 

[Finchinator]

This thread is now open to the public. Please do not make me regret this

 

[talah]

I have changed my views since my post in the Dynamax Discussion thread to think Dynamax doesn't actually have any good defense points anymore, and should absolutely be banned without any question.

The points I made in that thread not only stand, but I think are made stronger through more experience in the tier. Matches of equal skill are almost universally decided from who makes better use of their Dynamax; I say almost because yes, exceptions do happen but they are far from common.

Quoting a few lines from the council since they express what I want to get through very well:

from John:

In my opinion, it creates a near infinite amount of scenarios where the game is taken out of the hands of the players, as they must now account for any of the Pokemon on the opposing team potentially swinging the momentum of the game by dynamaxing.

from Charmflash:

Unfortunately this addition focuses the game flow too much on itself, and prevents players from expressing various skills they've acquired in a significant manner. Short-term prediction is an important part of the game we play, but it shouldn't be overshadowing everything else.

from Eo:

With two opponents of equal skill, this is generally a 50/50 decision, which isn't a new nor intrinsically unhealthy concept. The differences are that the accessibility of Dynamaxing means the frequency of these occurrences is higher than that of traditional game-deciding 50/50s, the snowball mechanic of Dynamaxing means that the cost of an incorrect decision is higher than similar mechanics such as Z-moves, and the one-time aspect of Dynamaxing means that no information can be gathered within the scope of a single battle to help inform a player's decision.

These all make excellent points, but also, can roughly be summed up into this:

Dynamax creates constant 50/50s around itself and the game will usually be decided by who wins those 50/50s, and that is not healthy or competitive.

I don't want to make a bigger post, since I think pretty much everything has already been said in the Discussion thread and in this one, but I really wanted to make it clearer for people who haven't read that thread and won't read the council posts on this one; the Dynamax meta is a bad one and we should all work towards moving on from it.

 

[chimp]

Competitive Pokemon has never had a mechanic like Dynamaxing, so I think it makes the most sense for us to JUST focus on Dynamaxing. Lets avoid comparing it too much to Z-moves and Megas, because, ultimately, this is a far different mechanic with several different layers.

That said, it is very easy to look at Dynamaxing and say “yep, its broken.” I mean, not only are your moves incredibly powerful, 100% accurate and have dramatic secondary effects, but you also get a large HP bonus (the minimum amount here, 10%, is still quite a bit) while also being immune to hazing and flinching while also hitting through protect. Just looking at it numerically…. It’s busted.

There are, of course, counter-arguments to this. It only lasts 3 turns. You can Dynamax to oppose another Dynamax, etc. etc. And, quite frankly, the more I’ve played in this metagame, the less *actually* broken I’ve began to feel that Dynamax is. Of course, when abused by certain Pokemon, like Gyarados and Hawlucha, the cracks become very apparent. So, we could just ban those Pokemon, instead of the entire mechanic itself. We could, in theory, save Dynamax while still keeping the metagame balanced.

But that begs the question: is Dynamax even worth saving?

As a community orientated around a competitive game, we’ve naturally come to agree on elements we believe are most valuable when it comes to competitive Pokemon.

I suggest watching THIS VIDEO.

It is a video regarding the Super Smash Bros. Melee scene, and the punchline of the video is a meme, but I do believe most of it is compelling when analyzing competitive games and sports in general.

TL;DW: Take tennis, for example. Pro tennis has restrictions on what size your racket can be and what material its made out of. They can’t be longer than 29 inches and wider than 12.5 inches. The strings of the racket “must be alternately interlaced or bonded where they cross and each string must be connected to the frame. If there are attachments, they must be used only to prevent wear and tear and must not alter the flight of the ball. The density in the center must be at least equal to the average density of the stringing.”

Why all these requirements? In theory, without them, players could just make a paddle entirely out of titanium or one that is 4 feet long so that they can hit the ball without having to move. These regulations exist to maintain what pro-tennis players value in, well, pro-tennis. Position, agility, reflexes, balance. The racket requirements reflect the kind of play style that players at the top deem the most worth rewarding. If Pro-Tennis players only cared about, say, pure strength, the rules and regulations of the game would be completely different in order to reflect that.

Just read about the history of golf balls. What golf balls are allowed to be made of, and everything to their size and weight, has changed quite a bit throughout the history of the sport.

There is a big debate amount the golf community (of which I am not a part of admittedly, though it makes for an interesting read) that golfers are becoming too powerful. In a literal sense. “Drive distances have increased so dramatically that many experts think they're rendering modern golf courses obsolete. When players can drive the ball over obstacles, it removes elements of strategy from the game. Lengthening a hole by pushing the tee box back can help, but also compromises a hole's original design. Even Tiger Woods has thoughts on the matter. "I just think it's going too far, because we're having to build golf courses, if they want to have a championship venue, they've got to be 7,400 to 7,800 yards long," he said in an interview with UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma in 2017. Tiger's proposed solution: "We need to do something about the golf ball." (source)

Aight. So, what the hell do golf balls have to do with Dynamaxing?

Well, the same issues apply, just in Pokemon, right? We, as a community, have to decide the skills that we value in the game we play. Just the same as Melee, tennis or golf. That is why I believe this is such a pivotal suspect for the history of Pokemon and Smogon in general. We have decided on these valued skills already, through other suspect tests and bans. From the tiering policy, the definition of skill:

Team Building Skill - the part of skill that is involved in the preparation for a battle

-Assessing and Dealing with Threats

-Building Towards a Strategy (or Strategies)

-Creativity

-Catering to Metagame / Opponents

Battling Skill - the part of skill involved in actually battling

-Picking the Right Lead

-Recognizing the Win Condition

-Picking the Right Move

-Smart Switching

-Gathering Information and Making Assumptions

-Long-term vs. Short-term Goals

-Assessing Risk

-Probability Management

-Prediction

Sooooo, the question becomes: Does Dynamaxing take away from what we have decided is skillful play? Well, I believe so. I believe that Dynamaxing forces the metagame away from certain defined skills we should be valuing as competitive players. More specifically, the skills regarding:

I. Picking the Right Move

I think Choice items were a pretty ingenious addition to the game. I want Game Freak to keep smoking whatever they were smoking when they came up with them. The balance between the extra power/speed and being limited to one move adds an extra layer to the gameplay that I would protect at all costs. One of the most infamous aspects of Dynamaxing is that it removes the choice lock of these items. Yes, it also does remove the item’s boosts, but such a flimsy, non-committal flip-flop of these mechanics takes away all the strategy that comes with using them, and to me that is unacceptable. And that is not even considering how it leads to even more broken Pokemon like Darmanitan-G.

II. Long-term vs. Short-term goals

ABR posted about this in the Policy Review thread:

“The uses of dynamax apply to any pokemon at any time. No matter what specific mons we try to get rid of (or even more narrowly prevent from dynamaxing), the remaining set of mons that can dynamax will always be problematic. It goes way beyond "Gyarados and Hawlucha are terrifying sweepers due to their dynamax moves." Anything with a choice item has the option of breaking the otherwise abusable lock by activating its dynamax. Any concept of consistency or stability goes out the window when the mon on the losing side of the 1v1 can flip that around with dynamax. For example, you can have a scenario of Diggersby vs Toxapex - the Diggersby user normally can threaten the ohko with earthquake. The question then arises, will the Diggersby dynamax? Will the Toxapex? These questions can arise in an abundance of scenarios and devolve into an unreliable game hyper-focused on the short term.”

And I agree with that.

III. Assessing Risk & Prediction

This goes back basically to the Choice argument. But, Dynamaxing is a very risk free buff. At worst, Megas and Z-moves had risk primarily in that you couldn’t also hold an item. With Z-moves you at least had to have some prediction. Dynamaxing is a straight buff that pads the hell out of your HP to the point where the risk is marginal at best. It goes back to many arguments against Z-moves, but even worse. People like to say Pokemon is a more advanced Rock-Paper-Scissors, and there is some truth to that. I did not like Z-moves because I felt it was against the ideals of the game to have a sudden, high powered move of (generally) any type, meaning you could easily blow through any counter you might have. Dynamax is like that but on crack, letting Pokemon muscle through counters with little to no risk or prediction involved at all. I believe a big part of Pokemon is in the balance between offensive threats and their counters. Like how golf players bombing their shots over every hazard on a course is dangerous to the sport, when Pokemon can too easily burst passed counters and checks, it leads to a dangerous metagame that is missing the positioning and management skills that we hold in the highest value.

My point is, Dynamaxing warps the entire way we approach playing Pokemon at a competitive level. And while that may not necessarily be a *bad* thing (see: weather wars in Gen 5) I think that the mechanic leads the metagame to a place where less skill is required. Less prediction skill, less team building skill, less risk management skill and just overall less complex gameplay.


Some final thoughts:

I don’t think Smogon has an obligation or need to keep dynamax just because it is the sparkly new mechanic introduced in this generation. Plenty of other competitive video game communities, especially grass-root ones, ban mechanics equivalent to Dynamaxing. See: Final Smashes from Super Smash Bros. Or items from Super Smash Bros. Or stage hazards from Super Smash Bros. While I agree that staying true to the cart is important in many cases, this is not one of them. For one, when a player agrees to follow Smogon rulesets, they are already consenting to a metagame outside of the one officially allowed on cart. For two, banning Dynamax would be entirely a tiering decision, no different than banning Mega-Metagross, for example

In addition, I don’t even feel as if Dynamaxing is balanced in its distribution. Yes, every Pokemon can use it, but it definitely is more effective on certain Pokemon over others. Water types, Fighting types, Psychic types, Fire types, Flying types and Poison types have the benefits of Dynamaxing skewed heavily in their favor as opposed to those of the Dark, Steel or Bug types, for example. It also heavily favors offensive Pokemon over defensive ones, since any non-damaging moves just become Max Guard, drastically limiting its defensive viability.

So, for all these reasons and more, I believe Dynamax should be banned from standard play. Hope my arguments made sense and my post wasn’t too long.


Sauces:
https://www.itftennis.com/technical/publications/rules/rackets/history.aspx
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/tennis/rules_and_equipment/4224024.stm
https://www.wired.com/story/almost-impossible-golf/

 

[NG Spencer]

this suspect seems like a pretty big waste of time given the two options presented, there is too much gray space inbetween with a mechanic like dynamax for solutions as black and white as these. when presented with the option of keep everything dynamax or keep nothing dynamax it is obvious what will be picked that you may as well save us the effort of laddering and allow us to play in a dynamax free meta so that it may have more time to develop giving the tour players a more balanced and stabalized SPL to ensure maximum competitiveness and the ladder players an easier time getting high gxe so we can shittalk others based on it.

OP did a good job of lining out the various ins and outs of dynamax as well as abusers so I don't have to, the most notably uncompetitve aspects of dynamax to me at least are how unpredictable the usage can be as it does not require an item such as Z moves and can be utilized by any pokemon, being able to nullify the negative effects of a choice item when convenient to achieve a surprise kill such as a specs dragapult that locked into flamethrower to kill a ferrothorn then dynamaxing and thunderbolting a gyarados attempting to set up. Scouting for this is incredibly momentum draining and leaving in your pokemon at the risk of the opponent dynamaxing is far too many coinflips throughout the entirety of the game.

Take for example a toxapex that comes in vs specs dragapult that just locked into shadow ball, there are 4 ways this could play out. The dragapult player goes for dynamax and uses an electric move, this will result in them killing the toxapex if the player stays in or being wasted if the player switches out. If the dragapult player uses shadow ball again there are two options that could happen, the toxapex player stays in to recover or they switch out scouting a dynamax that does not yet occur forcing a pokemon to take massive damage in the process. As you can see there are 2 good scenarios and 2 bad scenarios for each player, having to deal with this 5050 scenario every time a choicelocked wallbreaker comes is not optimal.

Although I have not really seen it addressed much, I find that life orbs boost stacking with dynamax to be overwhelming, as the OP stated the 3 turn buffs max out at 150 BP which while very powerful, is manageable with the defensive options this tier has including the use of your own dynamax to counteract theirs. However, with life orb factored into the equation the increased power from dynamax combined with the added effect getting an additional 1.3x boost to attacks has from my experience lead to many 2hkos from a dynamaxed pokemon against a dynamaxed pokemon or even ohkos that otherwise would not occur allowing the concept of dynamaxing with a defensive answer vs the offensive threat to be far more sound.

I would like to note that with the exception of galarian darmanitan the offensive pokemon of this tier are significantly less powerful than those of SM ou, with the defensive pokemon retaining a similar prowess for example ferrothorn and toxapex as well as buffs to previously underwhelming pokemon such as mandibuzz with the introduction of heavy duty boots (also benefits offensive mons like gyara) and axed defensive monsters such as chansey or av magearna are not as necessary seeing as nukes such as charizard-y and specs lele are also not usable. This is not an argument that because z abusers in gen 7 were stronger than dynamax abusers in gen 8 we should keep dynamax, the reason I am noting this is because of how dynamax from a defensive perspective and max guard work, when factoring in the overall power level of a setup sweeper in dynamax form assuming that the pokemon you switched in is able to handle that pokemon when both are in regular, it should be able to stop it when both are dynamaxed, and if the pokemon you are switching in could not beat the pokemon it is coming in vs, you are going to lose regardless of dynamax so keep your walls healthy and apply offensive pressure just as we have always done to try and win games.

Personally I save my dynamax to counteract their use of dynamax unless I am confident that me using it first would put me in a position where the opponent does not have an out to victory even if they utilize their dynamax. I consider max guard and the use of dynamax on defensive pokemon to be a incredible tool in combating offensive powerhouses like the aforementioned gyarados or hawlucha. I am aware of certain scenarios where it is necessary to dynamax right as the opposition does from a defensive standpoint think clefable vs +1 dragapult, in order to avoid dying, however there are midgrounds you can make such as sacking to scout for a dynamax then going back into your defensive counterplay once you have determined they have dynamaxed then the fact that they have only 2 turns while you have 3 allows for you to attack simultaneously alongside them or max guard when needed and come off on top. Of course you could always dynamax right alongside them and avoid the sack, however I have noticed and done myself as the meta developed set up then switch out in an attempt to bait dynamax from defensive pokemon, like all predictions/mindgames sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't, but frankly this is not that far off from gen 7s scouting a z move by sacking off a low HP or low value pokemon and the mindgames surrounding it like "do I sd again with my kartana and apply even more pressure and preserve the z move or predict their scout" which seems to be fine by the community based on how that generation ended.

Back to the way less healthy parts of dynamax, I fail to see why a restriction is not plausible. Smogon does try to stay away from complex bans but adhering to older tiering philosophy that was made when something such as dynamax was unfathomable and using such reasoning to completely do away with the gens new mechanic is a pretty shallow. Look at the sleep clause that everyone raged at when removed (and rightfully so), it takes a mechanic, sleep, which on cart there is no restriction to how many pokemon you are capable of invalidating through it, and says "you can only do this once", which is considered a more skillful aspect as you have to think carefully about what you sleep or whether or not they will pick a sack to the sleep. This restriction applies to every single pokemon capable of sleeping, just as a dynamax restriction would apply to every pokemon capable of dynamaxing: all of them.

What I personally believe to be a good starting line would be not allowing a pokemon that holds the choice items and life orb the ability to dynamax.

This would remove the nastiness attributed with locking into a move then dynamaxing to remove the hindrance when inconvenient and nabbing a surprise kill as I find this significantly harder to play against when any pokemon can bypass such a critical restriction that since the introduction of these items has come into play, forcing them to lock into x so y can do z and if they dont go for a instead my b can c allowing me to win. As I stated before, I consider the life orb boost to be pretty ridiculous when compared with dynamax, at least with choice items the power buff is nullified as well, but the boost in move power in conjunction with a 1.3x boost is often times significant enough to power through opposing dynamax in 2 hits, sometimes 1 depending on the pokemon while they often times are not able to ohko you based on the nature of this mechanic.

Creating this restriction would tone down significantly the bullshit attributed to dynamax as a nonchoiced pokemon often times has to be scouted anyway and dynamax sweepers would not hit nearly as hard without holding life orb

Like I said I currently do not mind seeing dynamax go or having it for the rest of the gen, but ideally there is a inbetween so we do not lose out on the fun new mechanic of this generation and do not have a meta worse than SM ou in terms of competitiveness. I have not seen anyone else suggesting a solution like this and as such would appreciate feedback and productive discussion as tiering philosophy hasnt exactly been that consistent over the years adhering to it when convenient to shut down this proposal seems laughable as this is not the same as letting blaze blaziken in ou nor is not particularly hard to grasp conceptually: take the uncompetitive aspect of dynamax we can limit and push them somewhere else.

 

[scorbunnys]

I don't think it should be banned, I mean, it centralizes a bit, but in the end some mons have been saved, in the case of offensive eeveelutions, charizard, gengar, etc ... banning it is not an option for me, it's like banging all mega evolutions in ORAS, I say NO BAN

 

[Plague von Karma]

In my opinion, Dynamaxing may well warrant a ban. While it's one of, if not the most controversial ban in Smogon history, I feel we need to discuss it.

Firstly, some have said this violates cartridge mechanics. However, there is a simple counterpoint to this: the Mega Rayquaza ban in Ubers. Simply don't push the button and choose a move. It's very easy to avoid.

The next step is to determine whether Dynamaxing as a mechanic is broken. In my opinion, the speed boosts from Max Airstream are up there. It can quickly turn Pokemon clearly not intended to have self-boosting for speed and/or good STAB into monsters. We've seen this with Gyarados quite clearly: he snowballs with Moxie very easily and can clear out a chunk of your team if you're not careful. After that, you're being stared down by a speed boosted, Moxie boosted Gyarados. If the Dynamax boosts went away after it was over, this may have been less of an issue. All of this was explained in the OP though, so to not be a parrot let's move on.

Some have said to "ban the abusers", but the issue is...every Pokemon is one to some degree. Any Pokemon can dynamax at any point and some simple fine tuning can make anyone snowball. You can turn a bad situation into a self-weather setter, trigger your Swift Swim or whatever and suddenly you're in a game winning scenario. Hell if it got to the point let's say, Rhyperior was being used, Max Quake can not only dispatch a Pokemon pretty easily but it also raises SpD, making him surprisingly bulky. Hell throw Max Rockfall in there for the SpD boost from Sand. Every Pokemon can abuse it, no matter how little. The fact you can set up your field while destroying a team is very overbearing and builds more momentum than any other mechanic in Pokemon history. Hawlucha has showcased this in spades, triggering Unburden through Max Lightning + Electric Seed. I don't think that Game Freak really thought this through.

However, I am very willing to be proven wrong on this. Personally I am and have been averse to the ban due to what it is, but there is cause for a suspect test.

Should it be banned I wouldn't mind a format split instead, but...we already have one for the National Dex. Not sure what you could do about that aspect. Perhaps there would be too much to manage for the sake of a community split? It's its own discussion really.

EDIT: Fixed some errors and grammar

 

[lydian]

First things first, great song choice!

So, I'd like to give my two cents on Dynamax and bring other points as to why I find it absurdly overwhelming and unhealthy. I don't wanna repeat or regurgitate much of the points brought up by the council members or the Dynamax thread on PR so I will focus on a point I haven't seen much talk of: counterplay, or lack thereof.

What is the counterplay to Dynamax? Obviously Ditto is the main one right now, and with over 42% usage on high ladder, I guess it's not hard to see why. The problem with Ditto, though, is that it hurts the metagame almost as much as it helps. The prevalence of Ditto puts Hyper Offense in a really weird spot in which you basically require your setup sweepers to be Ditto-proofed, if you will. Haban Berry Haxorus, Hawlucha, OTR Hatterene, and Substitute on pretty much every Pokémon, for example. For one that is very unhealthy to have pretty much the whole metagame revolving around this purple imposter blob but, as previously mentioned, there are still ways in which Dynamax users can get around Ditto. And when they do that, there's not much left. Of course, Choice Scarf Rotom-W can handle Gyarados with ease, Corviknight takes on Haxorus all day, and Tyranitar deals with Substitute Togekiss, but at the end of the day, the poll of counterplay to these Dynamax Pokémon is so limited that building balance without Ditto often feels pretty restricted, and even with a Ditto it's still complicated to account for the whole Dynamaxed meta.

After that there isn't much counterplay left to Dynamax as a whole, Protect doesn't help as the Max Moves go through it and still provide the desired boost. Dynamax Pokémon can't be flinched or phazed. Not even Encore, Destiny Bond, or Disable can do the trick to prevent Dynamax. There's also the argument of the so-called defensive Dynamax, but as a reactionary option, it's often tricky to click the button at the right time, turning it into an unreliable and inconsistent guessing game of its own. And the lack of recovery or Haze for defensive Pokémon when Dynamaxed allied with the double HP of the offensive Dynamax user may often make defensive Dynamax even more unreliable.

So what does that leave us with? Ditto and specific checks as counterplay to Dynamax. We already went over Ditto and how it's unhealthy and overcentralizing. Specific checks like the aforementioned Rotom-W for Gyarados, and Corviknight for Haxorus are fine and all until you realize that due to the sheer unpredictability and versatility of the mechanic this just won't work in practice as much as it should. There are countless Pokémon that make great usage of this mechanic, and fitting a check to every single one is completely out of the question, especially without relying on the aforementioned Ditto. By consequence that also makes it really hard to build this gen, because it feels like there will always be one or two Pokémon that if they just Dynamax versus your team at the right time it's game over. And when you consider that even these Dynamaxers can and will find a way to overcome their checks it becomes even more of a problem. Hawlucha using Dig to bypass Toxapex and Aegislash, as well as to gather a Sp. Def. boost against Clefable is a prime example.

A special mention also goes to Choice users, who can also claim a similar status and show little counterplay available. Obviously Ditto isn't a counterplay here as Choice users attempt to spread damage and turn the tide of the battle when Dynamaxing instead of setting up to win or severely weaken the opposing team outright. The unpredictability of it makes it once again impossible to rely on a Defensive Dynamax, and makes it so players always have to keep in mind the possibility of Choice users being freed from their lock, and thus the main drawback of said Choice moves is spiritually removed until the player uses up their Dynamax. To boot, this gen brings several threatening Choice users like Galarian Darmanitan, Barraskewda, Dragapult, and countless others that can completely shift the tide of the match in a mere couple turns, making it important to bring a Pokémon that can check these regardless of the move they're locked into.

I think it's clear to see the counterplay to Dynamax is very minimal aside from Ditto—which itself isn't the ideal check at all—and when you add up all the other problems that several users have already brought up, such as the unpredictability and versatility of the mechanic, as well as a sheer focus of the match in mere 3 turns that can and will completely shift the tide of the battle, I think it's for the best to ban Dynamax.

 

[EternumTagerMain]

I don't think it should be banned, I mean, it centralizes a bit, but in the end some mons have been saved, in the case of offensive eeveelutions, charizard, gengar, etc ... banning it is not an option for me, it's like banging all mega evolutions in ORAS, I say NO BAN

Mega Evolution had weaknesses like the required Item and was restricted to certain mons. Some megas who were too powerful like Salamence and Gengar were banned due to their power. Dynamax makes everyone have this power but some abuse it more than others.

 

[YellowSmurf]

Spent 3 hours this morning and got the req. meet. Was fun laddering, but in my opinion, either that a) dynamax should be banned or b) G-Darm, Gyarados, and Togekiss should be banned to Uber.
The reason for this is that I truly believe the metagame has the potential to handle every dynamax threat, with the exception of these 3, which there exist no true checks, except than Ditto revenge kill or Sash.
In case of G-Darm, Fire+Ground+Ice coverage with Gorilla tactics is insane, hit that whole tier for neutral dmg, plus U-turn to chipdown checks like G-Corsola make it uncounterable. Worst, even if you got the 50-50 right and have the right switch in, they can always Dynamax their mons and KO u anyway. In case of Gyarados, the only two checks are Pex and G Cor, which are both KO at +2. These mons are also definitely setup fodler if Gyarados runs taunt. Togekiss is also another mon which literally destroy the whole metagame with +2 Nasty Plot and Max Air for speedboost. The only way you don't lose is to this thing is to have a Ditto and reverse sweep yr enemy, or to pray that your Steel mons live a +2 Max Flare when dynamaxed and K-O Togekiss back with Max Steel. Thus the only real counterplay to these Dynamax-mon is either Dynamax itself or Ditto, which is why I believe the mechanics was too over-centralized. For the moment, I voted Ban toward Dynamax

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[Taliheim]

Hopefully I won't regret making this post
I've been mostly avoiding being involved in discussion on this, mainly since I don't enjoy arguments or politics, but know that I would have regrets if I didn't at least post my viewpoint here, so I will be responding to the thoughts of the council with any potential issues I have with their statements, and/or my own personal thoughts and takes on the subject. In the case of similar arguments, I focused on specifics brought up instead, to avoid repeating similar messages.

I'll also post some personal philosophies I have below, which will be applied to this post.

Philosophies

Innocent until proven guilty. Not just for being Game Freak's primary intended mechanic for generation 8, but for simply being held Suspect against the tier, I will consider Dynamaxing as healthy and competitive by default, until enough evidence and/or proof is provided that Dynamaxing's counterplay in either resources or actions are too constrictive, if they exist at all, to provide an enjoyable gameplay experience, in short-term, long-term, and teambuilding interactions.

Broken-checking-broken, in scenarios where the Suspect is both the checked and the checker, is a valid argument if there are other available resources or actions to provide counterplay, but is an invalid argument if there are not. Judgement about whether the available resources or actions are sufficient to void invalidity is ultimately subjective.

Long-term interactions are defined not by an arbitrary number of turns that "feel" long, but instead defined by the pursuit of an end goal or goals, and the manipulation of short-term interactions that lead to the stated end goal or goals. Whether this takes 6 turns or 600 does not matter.

ABR:
-Primarily worried about a lack of impact from long-term focus, believes that any single scenario can be turned on its head and therefore undermine the long-term, notably choicebreaking.
*Issues/Thoughts: Implies that stated one-turn scenarios are consistently enough to provide enough advantage to cause damage control and re-draw strategy. While that can certainly be the case, their existences can be recognized beforehand, potentially as far back as team preview, and can be factored into the strategy itself. Preservation of such info can also be chalked up to superior play.

Brofist:
-Similar worries as ABR, but specifies a perceived lack of counterplay do Dynamaxing due to potential snowballing.
*Issues/Thoughts: Implies that snowballing consistently happens after offensive dynamaxing. From personal experience, the only way to confirm snowballing is if the Dynamax was part of a premeditated goal, derived either from team conception or team preview. While it is still possible for shortsighted Dynamaxes to snowball, it is ultimately dependent on the offensive movetypes ran: Fighting, Poison, and Flying for statboosting, which require the user to be capable of utilizing said statboost; Fire, Electric, Water, Psychic, and Grass for typeboosting, usually only relevant for STAB; and Water, Fire, Ice, and Rock for Weather-based speed boosting, which requires Swift Swim, Chlorophyll, Slush Rush, or Sand Rush, respectively, to be relevant. Pokemon can still hold a nontraditional coverage move to provide snowballing potential, doing so disqualifies them from this discussion, as running such a move for the primary purpose of dynamax utilization makes it a premeditated lure; the chances of such a Pokemon being in such a position without being strategized for by their Trainer is extremely low, being the most likely to happen in early stages of the match; this provides an inhibitor, as in such early stages of the match it is unlikely that the opposing Trainer's checks and counters are dealt with.

Charmflash:
-Takes a different approach, and shows concerns about the variance of strategy styles, worried that Dynamaxing punishes strategies that do not incorporate it.
*Issues/Thoughts: I take no issue with the direction taken, and I agree that Dynamaxing, being the intended spotlight mechanic, will be an unignorable one. However, being unignorable does not require it to be the focus of any given strategy, but only requires it to be intrinsically taken into account. The most obvious examples are Weather teams: their core structures do not change with the advent of Dynamaxing, but instead utilizes it by gearing one of their Weather sweepers to be Dynamax-friendly. In this sense, Dynamaxing can increase diversity, rather than decrease it: I personally built a Sun team that ran Leafeon as a Chlorophyll sweeper, who was able to consistently pull its weight because Dynamaxing gave it the ability to bypass the startup turns for Dig and non-sun Solar Blade, as well as increasing the power of Dig, increasing its consistency and giving it the tools it wanted. This same team is also built with the assumption that each Pokemon will need to perform without the availability of Dynamaxing, decentralizing a potential Dynamax focus while increasing my options.

Eo Ut Mortus:
-States that the range options that the concept of Dynamaxing provides are too impractically wide for any given Trainer to be expected to deal with; Worried that trainers will be forced to operate with insufficient info, and be consistently pressured into high-risk decisions in order to deal with Dynamaxing. Finds issues with how consistently Dynamaxing is used to deal with Dynamaxing.
*Issues/Thoghts: The first major statement listed, that there are too many options for any given trainer to practically deal with, is one that I both agree and disagree with. In the context I used in my above summary, where any given trainer should be expected to recognize the necessary options, I agree; the bulk of trainers who play Currentgen OU, who understand the metagame but have no wishes to enter tournaments bar the occasional roomtour, cannot be expected to recognize all available options to both them and the opponent, and unlike previous gens, the punishments have greater potential. In the context of a Trainer's raw potential, I disagree; it is possible to recognize all necessary options, and derive possible sets, coverage moves, hazard carriers, and lures, to the same degree as the previous generations, where pressure and close analysis of the opponent's play in the first few turns will be enough to fill in most major holes, and where deviations from a correct analysis sacrifice enough team effectiveness to allow it to be properly dealt with or played around, and punished. However, doing so requires much greater focus and effort than it has in previous gens, and will likely only be achieved at tournament-level play.
*As for the second statement, my personal experience is that Dynamaxing is commonly used to deal with Dynamaxing because it retains the same flexibility of utilization that offensive dynamaxes have; most teams do not intend for counter-dynamaxing to be their only major way of dealing with opposing Dynamaxes, but instead of being forced to focus their play on their answers, they are given the freedom to play the momentum game, to further their own strategy without relinquishing too much control to their opponent. In terms of the 50/50s, I still believe that enough external information can be gathered to weigh them in similar fashion as the other 50/50s that can exist.
*One last thing: I wish for a clarification on this quote: "...and the one-time aspect of Dynamaxing means that no information can be gathered within the scope of a single battle to help inform a player's decision." Could there be clarification as to what type or types of info are being referred to? In its current state, the quote seems to claim that it's impossible to gather any relevant information regarding Dynamaxing, which I consider to be straight-out false; I doubt that that was the message you wanted to portray.

Finchinator:
-Similar to ABR and Brofist, notably brings up worried about forced reactive measures derailing premeditated strategies, potentially to the point of unrecoverability.
*Issues/Thoughts: At the risk of sounding rude, not to Finch but to those who fall under the category of people whose strategies can be forced to derail to the point of compromisation, strategies and/or teams that are unable to provide enough flexibility to provide sufficient reactive measures to abstract threats are fundamentally flawed; their scopes needs to be broadened in order to accomodate. I do not believe that accomplishing this without losing sight of the original strategy or making the strategy's implementation too weak is impossible, not by a long shot.

KratosMana:
-Similar to ABR, Brofist, and Finch, brought up how they percieve Dynamaxing as having little if any risk at any given point in a match.
*Issues/Thoughts: This is a statement that I believe to be false. Dynamaxing's potential is extremely high, but it can ultimately only apply once to a team every match; using it defensively prevents you from using it offensively and vice versa, and using it at unexpected times prevents it from being used reactively or in a premeditated manner. This can be compounded further if a team was built with the assumption that a predetermined Pokemon will take the Dynamax, and is given a movepool designed to abuse it, without assuming that it will need to pull its weight without Dynamaxing; being forced to Dynamax any other Pokemon lowers the team's potential significantly, and the team's Trainer must factor that into their strategy, limiting their options. The primary risk of Dynamaxing is that it is a resource, and like other resources, mismanaging it can be punished.

TDK:
-Focused on the abundance of 50/50s Dynamaxing provides; also brings up the lack of phazing, and choicebreaking.
*Issues/Thoughts: A consistent theme that the 50/50 arguments I have seen carry is that they view the 50/50s in a vaccuum, without considering the existence of external info, which is what weighs the given options in any 50/50 scenario, and to quote myself from earlier in this post, "In terms of the 50/50s, I still believe that enough external information can be gathered to weigh them in similar fashion as the other 50/50s that can exist." Expanding on that quote, the aspect of managing it as a one-use resource that I mentioned above is, in my opinion, one of the largest factors of applicable external info. So yes, unless this is a scenario where external info does not apply or does not exist, such as lastmon vs. lastmon scenarios, I do believe that they are determined by a form of skill, where the objectively better player has the advantage.
*On the subject of choicebreaking, which ABR also brought up, such a method of Dynamaxing is still ultimately reactive, planned for from team preview or even from the teambuilder, or straight-up random. The latter scenario, Dynamaxing not to further the realization of a goal or pose as a wincon but to simply surprise an opponent, is an extreme mismanagement of Dynamaxing, and will consistently put the offending Trainer at a disadvantage; if it does not, and if it truly was random, then the offending Trainer incorrectly identified their potential options and endgoals, and stumbled onto the "correct" path by happenstance, the path that the opposing trainer would have attempted to recognize from team preview and play from previous turns, meaning that both trainers would need to be at fault for such a scenario to occur.

Ultimately, my view on Dynamaxing's impact on long-term interactions are the complete opposite of most opinions I've seen, including the Council's: Dynamaxing does not hinder or nullify long-term interactions; Long-term interactions are what keep Dynamaxing predictable and in check, and Dynamaxing enhances long-term interactions.

I understand and respect the worries people have, and why they will vote for a ban, but as it currently stands, I would vote No Ban.

 

[PotatOS]

I say we should ban dynamax.

It enables many Pokemon to come out of nowhere and sweep entire teams. No item restrictions, no strict setup, nothing. Just 3 turns of boosted stats, 100% accurate z-moves and even field changes that come with them. It makes it so that, unlike mega evolving or z-moves, it is completely impossible to not run a team with plans to dynamax a Pokemon. Hawlucha and Gyarados have become monsters because of it. Since dynamaxing forces everyone to use it, dynamaxing breaks the spirit of competitive battle.My vote goes to ban dynamaxing.

 

[Destin77]

BAN for myself...

Everyone in my entourage and my community say that it would be banned...

For me it’s offering a extremely good Bulk with his HP Boots (When you see Ferrothorn or Toxapex Dynamax), it offer 3 Max Attack (3 Z Moves), and they can offer a boost in Stats (Like Attack or Speed with Fight or Flying), and with all of that, to much Pokémon can destroy a team, for an exemple, Sirfetch’d can use Max Flying and Max Fight for a Boost and Sweep all teams...

And Ditto is the most common way to kill Dynamax, and 70% of team that I fighted had this thing

 

[Yung Dramps]

I was gonna make a long-ass PSA post but I don't wanna bore anyone so I'll keep it simple and to the point:

If you want to and think you have the skill/motivations to make reqs but don't feel like it because you feel your side is guaranteed to win or lose and not because of IRL commitments or w/e, slap yourself, get on the ladder, get those reqs (or at least try) and vote. This suspect is the most important one of the entire generation: The outcome will essentially dictate all tiering decisions that come after. A fluke vote that comes about from the majority not winning could be disastrous for the format and the playerbase in particular.

 

[Deleted User 229847]

I feel like for the first time since I can remember, all arguments have been adequately discussed in abundance, on both the OU metagame discussion thread and the policy review one. I don't feel like adding anything in particular because of that, since I've already expressed myself here and there on both SD and the OU metagame discussion topic.
I wholeheartedly agree with Yung Dramps, this suspect is crucial for the future of the meta, do your best to get REQs regardless of where you stand.

As far as I am concerned, being kind of a veteran player (playing since late-2009 on the so-called shoddy battle simulator) I am pretty much amazed by the fact that people are defending this atrocity of a mechanic clearly not meant for 1v1 singles. I'd even go as far as to say that it's pretty much self-evident and you don't really need many words to make a convincing point.
The OP is beautifully crafted (albeit a little bit too long for my taste) and I challenge anyone in crafting any good counterarguments (I checked both topics: not even a decent one was made).
Even some competent players whom I think quite highly of, have this twisted vision on dynamax that makes me question if game knowledge (practical) and policy knowledge (theoretical) are two different and perhaps not always overlapping and/or linked areas.

I hope good-sense will prevail at the end of the day, and I'll do my best, for the first time, to actually get REQs and contribute in nuking this aberration of a concept out of the orbit.

 

[Dracolosse]

It seems everyone wants Dynamax dead.. they hate it, it's broken, they want it banned, etc... what I am afraid of is what the meta will look like once it's banned. Does anyone even wonder? As OP said: it is the core mechanic of the generation, the one way in years the game is bringing us something new to toy with. So what? we just delete it in less than a month? and... what are we left with? A strictly less diverse game than last gens. No megas, half the cast gone, no Z-moves.... this will just feel like a small, scarce, constrained meta. The only new things compared to the past years are like... heavy-duty boots and the ~5 new mons that don't suck competitively. What a revolution. I was really looking forward to some fresh air with Gen 8, and cutting that main mechanic straightaway simply feels like a huge shame. So what if it is makes the game more reliant on your use of your dynamax in order to win? Saying it turns every game into a 50-50 is a flat out exaggeration. Making great use of your Dynamax with a team built around it while maneuvering so as not to let your opponent in a spot to abuse theirs is a true skill, and one that I find a lot of fun. The game changes, take the time to adapt as well! Two weeks is so short...

Please give it more time.

Please do not send us after 1 month to a noveltyless meta that will feel like a poorer version of the past gens.

No ban.

 

[asterat]

I kinda wish Darm and Dracovish coulda been quickbanned so we could see that metagame, this gen is unplayable if they are here long term anyways (with or without Dynamax). Not sure if any dynamaxer is super broken besides Gyarados, if those three mons were gone maybe it would be ok. I don't think Hawlucha or Tyranitar is really that overwhelmingly powerful as people thought they were initially. Would have been cool to see the darmless meta before we had to make a dynamax decision, could have given us more options like banning a few specific abusers or something. If Darmanitan, Dracovish, and Gyarados were gone would Dynamax really be that broken? It's hard to tell, because that would have large ripple effects on what is good in OU (Seismitoad, etc.) It's far from a perfect comparison, but in gen 6 there were a bunch of new mega evolutions that were broken, we didn't ban the whole mechanic though (I know there were a finite set of abusers, etc.) This is an imperfect argument of course, but the idea any mon could dynamax at any time and sweep your whole team is actually kind of flawed. A specific subset of mons use this mechanic far better than others (basically those that can set their own weather and terrain for STAB, and have airstream). Defensive dynamaxing is situational and pretty much results in an offensive dynamax not sweeping. From team preview you can pretty accurately guess which mon is most likely going to Dynamax - obviously anyone can but it is significantly less effective - on a typical rain team Pelipper of Ferrothorn can do it, but it's almost always going to be Gyarados or Barraskewda or Drednaw or whatever.

In short I think it would have been much better to quickban or suspect Darmanitan and Dracovish first, then let the meta resettle before evaluating Dynamax, and then consider banning individual abusers instead of ditching the mechanic altogether. In this instance I think Gyarados (as an individual abuser) would have to go, but I am inclined to believe he is the only one that is necessarily broken.

Not sure if I'll get a response here, but can any of the OU council elaborate as to why we're doing this before quickbanning or suspecting Dracovish or especially Darmanitan. Do you really think there is any chance they are going to stick around in a healthy metagame long term??

With all this said, I am unsure of whether or not Dynamax will eventually need to be banned. My opinion of it has drastically changed over the past two weeks, and I continuously think it is less overbearing, with the exception of Gyarados. I just think this isn't the best first step in fixing the tier and as a result I'm on team no ban.

 

[Jordy]

Please don't bring up any other possible suspect tests in this thread. If anyone does this in the future, your post will be deleted. If you so urgently have an issue with a Pokemon or multiple Pokemon that you can not wait, try to spark some discussion in the OU Metagame Discussion thread, or perhaps PM a council member with your thoughts.

 

[Patolegend!]

Ok so a quick replay (I would say two average players) that highlights all that Dynamax can do:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1022153054

In a nutshell, breaking choice lock, surviving a hit I shouldn't have, and getting up rain for my victory. I think this comes under the "can't predict when Dynamax will happen and blast through my team" category. I think that it's incredibly fun, and, as the main thing of generation 8, should be under the ban hammer with a heavy heart.

Just as a side point, not entirely irrelevant to the thread, there is most likely going to be an OM with Dynamax in it, I can't see it just disappearing off the radar. It just isn't that conducive to a competitive, strategic, tactical metagame.

 

[Ereshkigal]

While this is undoubtedly the novelty of this eighth generation, I strongly believe that Dynamax is both broken and unhealthy in this metagame.

While in previous generation the different mechanics, whether it was permanent weather, megas or z-moves, were as centralizing as Dynamax currently is, they were not as obnoxious. Dynamax is without a doubt the most threatening mechanics we've ever seen and the fact that every Pokémon can be viable Dynamax with being able to carry an item is one of the best assets of the mechanics and this is quite interesting to explore.

BUT while this can be pretty interesting to explore this mechanics is also an issue because it allows? Pokémon to beat their check easily, while setting terrains/weather or get a boost to make them almost unstoppable. All that with very few counterplays. I made a post in the policy thread in which i said we should wait until spl but as I play more and more games, I changed my mind to ban it as soon as possible. The fact that Pokémon like Hawlucha can run moves that would be otherwise unviable, like Dig, or that Pokémon who benefits from Choice Items can just Dynamax, unlock themselves and wreck havoc during 3 turns to ease the job for their mates is truly stupid. Sure they lose the effects of their item, so what? They still can just bop at least 1 more Pokémon that they would have otherwise.

Some people have talk about the defensive interest of this mechanic, while they're right it's also a point which can be use to prove the unhealthiness of Dynamax because it allows you to check and beat threats you wouldn't normally without dramatic consequences for you. The unpredictability of Dynamax is also one of the main issue since basically every Pokémon on the other side could be a Dynamax recipe.

Now into Gigantamax : It's basically the same shit as Dynamax but with less distribution and with some of them being underwhelming. But this is still Dynamax.

All of this makes me believe that Dynamax is highly obnoxious for the current metagame and therefore should be ban from OU as soon as possible.

 

[Colonel M]

I've known some of the unfortunate ins with how everything has gone with this, and I definitely feel a lot of empathy for those who have fought hard to have this suspect happen. While as a whole I think a quickban would have been the best course of action, I understand the direction taken here and I am personally glad we are not half-assing the suspect with Gigantamax Pokemon being allowed if Dynamax is banned. I get in my previous post in PR I mentioned being potentially okay with trying it, but the more I played / watched / thought about it the worse Gigantamax being allowed and Dynamax not sounded.

I understand I'm not going to sway everyone in the anti-ban camp as far as Dynamax goes. Still, I want to ask a genuine question - are you wanting to keep this mechanic strictly as a fun factor or because you see it as a mechanic that is actually balanced and fair to the metagame? I know some people originally made fair points on the anti-ban camp and I felt that their caution was fair on it. I'm also glad that we took the time [as a whole] to look at the mechanic and not ban it Day 1. Still, I don't think the metagame will be good with Dynamax allowed and it certainly will hurt lower tiers in the long-term as well. I know this isn't for lower tiers either, but consider that us allowing Dynamax technically impacts those tiers as well. UU Alpha is a fucking mess right now with the mechanic allowed, and I don't see how it will stabilize in a healthy position with Dynamax and Dexit cuts involved. And, no, "being able to use it too" is one of the dumbest arguments I've ever seen to justifying Dynamax's existence. Same with these "nerfs" like minimizing Dynamax level or removing items or declaring who you're Dynamaxing with. We never declared which Mega Zard we were ever going to use.

Dynamax can create damning matchups. The extra bulk alone is probably one of the biggest things people underestimate with Dynamax's power. Dynamax allows Pokemon like Gengar to suddenly survive weaker Earthquakes while trapping with its G-Max move. You have bulkier Pokemon like Gyarados, Tyranitar, hell even Rhyperior that can take this mechanic and easily use it for offensive sets to withstand moves that it would normally never survive and snowball with Max Attack's boosts. It's a fun mechanic - don't misunderstand that. There are some things I legitimately like about Dynamax, but in the end those reasons aren't necessarily for a healthier metagame overall.

People rag on removing a core mechanic ruins diversity. This in of itself is very false to me. Less Pokemon has shown a lot of diverse ways to use some of these Pokemon overall, and Dynamax does nothing more but thin the amount of Pokemon that are viable. Sure, one could argue Dynamax helps some Pokemon thrive (Charizard being the best example here), but it allows Pokemon that abuse the mechanic to simply overshadow these Pokemon.

Dynamax removing Choice lock also creates a lot of headaches. Galarian Darmanitan being able to freely choose a move after locking itself into an attack makes predicting against it that more dangerous. It takes elements out of the defensive player's hands and just makes the offense dive player dictate the flow of the game that much easier. We haven't even talked about Ditto. Sure, in the average-ish ladder we've seen Ditto only at about #3, but it's #1 in the highest ladder taken into account and it is the Pokemon that helps dictate the flow of Dynamax. A lot of people criticize how Landorus-T "held the metagame on its shoulders." I would argue that Ditto is currently doing this in a much more severe fashion than Landorus-T *ever* has in its 3 gens of existence. People have even metagamed against Ditto copying it too with things like Corviknight having STAB Brave Bird and no other moves alongside its boosting, setup, and recovery.

We've seen setup sweepers dominate and those with Choice lock. Theres also things like Life Orb Clefable who have been taking advantage of Dynamax and just crushing a lot of defensive teams with barely breaking a sweat. There is no Chansey, and the amount of Special walls with recovery and good utility tools are fairly limited in this generation. It just makes punching holes that much easier for other Pokemon to pick up later on.

Overall, while I understand many will take my argument and cast it aside as "useless" and "hypocritical", the sheer amount of things Dynamax enables is the biggest problem of all. It's an offensive and defensive mechanic none like Megas and Z Crystals. I feel Dynamax and Gigantamax go beyond those two mechanical and create an overall worse environment for our competitive metagames. I feel the mechanic actually does the complete opposite to diversity overall, and I think the future of the metagames depend on the removal of this mechanic.

I'll refrain from posting in this thread from here on out. I just want to weigh in with what my personal thoughts are and for those who are anti-Dynamax ban to seriously consider everything before proposing that you're for the mechanic to stay. I feel everyone on the council and many prominent players have thought this out carefully and the decision may not have been easy to reach for some. I just feel this particular mechanic requires support to enforce its banishment and for it to remain banished without any intervention of keeping it.

 

[BlazeLatias]

Phew this is quite the doozy. Going to just start off by saying this is going to be hella long just so you know.

Anyways Here we stand with dynamax being the issue this time around. Suffice to say this is one mechanic that has really pushed the boundaries of being a "balanced game mechanic" and by balanced i mean completely unhealthy for this current metagame. For the longest time ive been saying that for in order for the current metagame to actually move forward this mechanic needs to go. I see dynamax as something that the meta has been built around entirely and not in a positive way. We see things like hawlucha, gyarados, excadrill, togekiss, Corviknight any many more abusers of dynamax run rampent in the OU tier these last few weeks and it really shows just how unhealthy this mechanic is just by watching them dismantle teams on their own. Obviously There exists counter-play in the forms of Corsola-G, Ditto to some extent as well as defensively using dynamax but in my opinion thats also a pretty big problem. While counter-play does exist in some form its certainly not plentiful.

When i describe dynamax i think of it as what happens when you Combine Zygarde complete with Z moves for 3 turns. Many people tend to say you can simply stall out the turns which is true but its pretty impractical and in most scenarios very tough to do unless you run stall. That aside lets talk about why its unhealthy rather then just list names. First of all we have the HP buff, This buff to hp is pretty significant primarily because it increases the bulk up the dynmaxed pokemon thus being able to survive attacks that would otherwise ohko or 2hko its non dynamaxed version. A pretty good example of this would be gyarados which is actually able to stomach a Thunderbolt or volt switch from a rotom-w assuming its not boosted by nasty plot. Essentially while dynamaxed the increase to bulk can be the difference between a sweep being ended or a sweep continuing. Next we have the moves. Primarily one of the biggest offenders when it comes to Max moves Max Airstream stands above the rest because it allows several abusers of dynamax to gain a boost to speed that they wouldent otherwise be able to achieve through normal means. Gyarados,togekiss and Corviknight are some good examples here. While gyarados can already boost its speed with dragon dance, through the use of max airstream it can attack and gain yet another speed boost and if it kills a mon? It gains another attack boost from moxie allowing it to snowball even further and possibly ending the game assuming no counterplay is present on the opposing field. Corviknight is pretty notable here too because of how strong its Bulk up set is combined with the speed boost from max airstream. While Fighting and poison type max moves are most definitely weaker the fact they straight up give you a free attack or Special attack boost is still pretty huge. There are some notable stuff like specs Toxtricity which can dynamax grab special attack boosts from max ooze and then go back to spamming whatever it was locked into (most likely boomburst or overdrive). The point i'm trying to make here is that Max moves can allow pretty much most things to snowball given you dynamax at the right time. Obviously if you dynamax at the wrong time you get punished and that's that you lost dynamax for playing poorly. But a well played dynamax used at the right time can decide a game.

This leads me to the next point of just how unpredictible dynamax can be. When is the right time exactly? The opponent can dynamax at virtually any time and dynamax isnt somthing thats limited to simply one pokemon on the team similar to how Z-moves and Mega evolutions worked. With the latter two mechanics you for the most part knew what to expect. Heatran would most likely carry firinium-z or Grassium-z and landorus-t would carry Rockium-z or Flyinium-Z. Once they were used that was the end of it. With dynamax virtually any pokemon at any given time can dynamax. It isnt somthing limited to one mon. Say someone has a Gyrados and Darmanitan you would think gyarados is going to dynamax but what if they instead dynamax with darmanitan and catch you off guard so you wind up getting punished severely simply because the darm took advantage of how dynamax removes the choice locked restriction on the pokemon for 3 turns. Sure you can deal with it accordingly but the fact remains there are a ton of factors to take into account. While there are currently defined abusers of dynamax that stand above the rest virtually anything can dynamax at any given time and take advantage of it. Its unpredictable and thats problematic. Got a BU corv and a hydra? You can dynamax the hydra rather then corviknight assuming it fits the situation and take the opponent completely off guard potentially or you can simply use corv. Counterplay does exist for dynamax that much is obvious.

I Mentioned a few of the more prominent ones and chances are i missed 1 or 2. But that being said Counterplay is Few and thats problematic. Yeah both sides can use dynamax but thats irelevent the point is the effect it has one the metagame with dynamax being the center of everything. In most cases it determines who wins. Ditto has become essentially a staple on most teams simply to serve as a means to counter dynamax. While ditto was a fairly good mon back in USUM i dont think it hit this level of usage which really shows just how insane dynamax is. Ditto in most cases is the players main lifeline for dealing with dynamax especially on offense and stall which also just so happen to be the two playstyles that are worth using the most (you can probably make a case for the others but personally i feel like they just get eaten alive in this meta).

I'm going to end this essay here simply because chances are people have already talked about things i probably missed here but TLDR: Dynamax is un-healthy and should be banned. In order for this metagame to improve and move on to deal with other potential issues Dynamax must be removed from the metagame. A metagame with dynamax will eventually stagnate. This is not even close to being on the level of Z-moves or even mega evolutions its had a far worse impact on the metagame. Finally i'm going to end with this cause believe it or not some people think this is a reason to keep dynamax: Being a core mechanic should not stop something from being banned, If its unhealthy or broken it should be removed regardless of what it is. Its not worth individually banning certain pokemon because of dynamax when we can instead just remove the source of the problem instead. It brings absolutely nothing positive to the metagame. Thank you for reading!