On The Justification Of Bans

[the_artic_one]

Stacking the odds in your favor is a legitimate strategy which is why evasion and OHKO moves are on the testing list. The only good reason to ban them is if they're overpowered (which I actually suspect that they might be).

 

[gengod]

since there are virutally infinite tactics that you can use in pokemon, obviously some will rise to the top.

The idea that "we need to ban stealth rock because its a really good move that a lot of people use" is fundamentally flawed and just demonstrates a lack of understanding of competitive games.

This point that you bring up is kind of interesting as it can also be applied to both Deoxys-S and Garchomp. You could say that both of them were just extremely good at what they did and "rose to the top" because of it. In turn you could say that Stealth Rock is also extremly good at what it does and is quite comparable to both Deoxys-S and Garchomp and a lot of the arguments used for the banning of these two Pokemon are currently being used to try to justify the banning of Stealth Rock now, yet quite a few people say there is no justifiable reason to ban Stealth Rock.

At what point do we draw the line on determining what and why something should be banned?

Which is exactly why they are still banned. Anything that relies too much on RNG's is drawing from an overabundance of luck, thus reducing the effectiveness of strategic pokemon battling in general.

Sounds like Shaymin-S in a nutshell.

 

[mien]

Evasion isn't banned because it's "annoying", it's banned because it emphasizes luck over skill and decreases the quality of the metagame.

Lol if we have to ban everything luck based we still have a long way to go.
Confuse Ray, Flinching moves, Paralyze, moves with low accuracy all of them are luck based.

At it's current state the only reason i can think of is subjective, annoying, people don't like it. Similar to Wobbuffet that is

The only way to ban something justified is banning it objective based on definitions rather then on arguments from respected mods or votes from people who act like a sheep and fellow everything those mods say

Problem here is Usage is the only Objective fact we have however then there must be line we must draw

 

[Jumpman16]

dt is 100% dependent upon luck, unlike flinching moves and low accuracy moves whose main object, by sheer, objective percentage, are to cause damage (100% > 20%::Waterfall hits > Waterfall Flinches). the extent to which something is luck based and what effect it has on competitive pokemon is the crux of whether we would consider banning it, which is why we dont ban metronome and probably why the voters won't move to vote Skymin uber

 

[sheep]

Every OU (and most BL and UU Pokemon) dominate a section of the game, because Pokemon are specialized. Nothing fills the Rapid-Spinner with Recovery roll quite like Starmie. Abomasnow is the best hail starter; it completely outclasses Pokemon using Hail. You really can't beat Blissey for general special walling.

Except Magikarp.

 

[obi]

"Magikarp" isn't going to fit into the OU, BL, or UU categories.

 

[AeroGP]

Seven Deadly Sins interpreted Sirlin wrong. In Pokemon, being "too good" means that a pokemon doesn't just centralize a role - it can win the game on it's own. It centralizes teams. Even then, as Sirlin states banning them rarely creates a better metagame than before. It may have been acceptable in Red/Blue/Yellow, when there were only 2 Ubers, but now that there's enough Ubers that Ubers can be played like a legitimate tier, everyone should be playing it as the legitimate tier.

It completely goes against Smogon's philosophy, but if we're going to be pulling quotes from Sirlin, we should understand what they imply fully.

 

[Chou Toshio]

As I understand it, the main criteria for a ban are all specific to each effect that we're going for. For example, Double Team and Sheer Cold are banned because they rely solely on luck. This is unlike Sand Veil, where luck helps, but it is not the only factor to success. I have always thought that Uber Tier pokemon were deemed Uber because they are "too good" for standard play and that tier is to function as a trash bin of sorts. Yet other extreme things are banned because they take away from competitive play, such as Wobbuffet. All 3 of these categories must first be assigned, and each have their own uniquely subjective arguments.

It's pretty clear to me that Stealth Rock is not luck based or "too good" in any way, so its only remaining category with which to debate it in would be to say that it does or does not damage competitive play. Even if it does damage competitive play, we have to assign an arbitrary degree of damage and decide if it passes that tolerance level or not, such as Wobbuffet did.

While I think this particular thread focus is ill prepared for such an undertaking, the concept is a good one. I think the Smogon community would benefit greatly if the Policy Review Board were to formulate its own community specific criteria or criterion with which to use as a guideline for further regulation of the rules that make the competitive standard format.

Again, this is just from my observations. I would fully understand if that kind of debacle would encourage excessive use of theorymon, and I still think that the current voting method is a great idea.

Rather than something being "too good," or "luck based," or "extreme," I think you can be more accurate (though less specific) by saying that "It's banned because it makes for a worse game." That problably means "a less competitive game." Unfortunately this is not something that can be defined, as even if we talk about centralization (which by the way is also hard to define as to how much is too much), "uncentralized" =/= "better"/"more competitive" necessarily.


What makes a game more/less competitive or a better/worse game is not something that can be objectively defined. As you said, any asignment of degree of "hurting the game" would be arbitrary, and I don't think you can define any criterion that can help.

In other words I agree that the current voting method is a great idea, and probably the only real viable one (though it's always possible that the process could be refined).

edit: I guess what I'm getting at is that at the end of the day, "Because we wanted to," (because that's how the vote went) seems like as good a reason (justification) to ban/unban as any to me. Heck, "because we wanted to" might be the only reason worth considering.

 

[gorm]

as of right now our bans need to be arbitrary and based on the best assumptions we have at hand, which is usually the reasoning found in a good deal of the suspect bold votes.

to make ban processes more objective we need more data which means more testing of suspects.

i think we are going about everything pretty well and improving our definitions as we go along, theres just still alot of work ahead.

my definition of a strategy (move/pokemon set/item/anything) that requires a ban is one that has no viable checks, where "viable" is "something that takes away from the metagame" or whatever, an arbitrary parameter seeking definition and one that usually is well enough explored in the suspect votes we've had.

 

[Glen ^^]

It's pretty clear to me that Stealth Rock is not luck based or "too good" in any way, so its only remaining category with which to debate it in would be to say that it does or does not damage competitive play. Even if it does damage competitive play, we have to assign an arbitrary degree of damage and decide if it passes that tolerance level or not, such as Wobbuffet did.

I think we should consider the risk/reward ratio of SR to.

If I'm not mistaken, this was taken in account when discussing a possible unban to OHKO Moves (Garchomp wasn't even suspect yet).

 

[Kataphraktoi]

I think only GF should be able to change the metagame, or we get what i think we have now-a lot of junior modding by the community. Im not sure where people get the idea ubers are pokes too good for the metagame-i thought it was pretty clear from GF materiel what pokes are uber and which are legends and which are normal. Its my opinion that garchomp simply is not a uber;it breaks the mold of ubers. for one thing, its a evolved form and another, its seen in hands of trainers ingame and you can go on. I think if you compare its "mechanics of existence" for lack of better phrase, it shares little in common with ubers. Deoxys-e is an uber regardless if its stats are 20 and it only has splash-its STILL an uber. And i agree entirely with sirlin;i would much rather people use garchomp on me so i can play the legitimate game(and i almost feel every win i get with these bans deserves an asterisk-sure i won but what if i had played in the real world, not smogon sandbox?). I hadnt heard about scrubs before but it explains the bans entirely to me.

My .02$

 

[MegaMewtwo]

Its my opinion that garchomp simply is not a uber;it breaks the mold of ubers. for one thing, its a evolved form and another, its seen in hands of trainers ingame and you can go on. I think if you compare its "mechanics of existence" for lack of better phrase, it shares little in common with ubers. Deoxys-e is an uber regardless if its stats are 20 and it only has splash-its STILL an uber.
My .02$

1. Going by your logic, Wobbuffet's not uber either.

2. "Mechanics of existence" determines if a Pokemon's legendary. Keep in mind there are non-legendary ubers (see first point) and legendary non-ubers. I sure hope you don't think Entei's uber. Or if you're going by battle tower bans, then you'd be saying Phione's uber.

 

[bugmaniacbob]

I wish I knew what the logic determining an Uber actually is...

I just realised that my sig could be used to refer to this discussion on the moral aspect of bannings.

 

[lilyhollow]

I think a much better argument would be to say that it hurts standard play by necessitating a suicide lead coupled with Rotom on every team, effectively removing 1/3rd of the team from the start. Even then, that's a very hard argument.

I think it's almost an impossible argument really. "Why not ban suicide leads then?"

I mean obviously you'll have the people who would slit my throat for suggesting we ban Azelf or whatever, but this is basically identical to a situation we found ourselves in with Garchomp. Even though banning Yache Berry would have probably guaranteed Garchomp a spot in OU, the idea wasn't taken seriously because "it's Garchomp's fault." No other pokemon caused any sort of problems with it, so how could we possibly turn around and ban Yache Berry instead of the pokemon who "made" it broken?

The situations are similar, except now we're talking about Stealth Rock, a move that has basically become a defining attribute of competitive DP/Pt, and one that is almost certainly objectively "more important" than, say, Azelf and Aerodactyl. If those were the only two pokemon to cause problems with Stealth Rock ("force you to use a suicide lead + Rotom on every team"), exactly what logical reason would we then have to "blame Stealth Rock"?

 

[bugmaniacbob]

I mean obviously you'll have the people who would slit my throat for suggesting we ban Azelf or whatever, but this is basically identical to a situation we found ourselves in with Garchomp. Even though banning Yache Berry would have probably guaranteed Garchomp a spot in OU, the idea wasn't taken seriously because "it's Garchomp's fault." No other pokemon caused any sort of problems with it, so how could we possibly turn around and ban Yache Berry instead of the pokemon who "made" it broken?

I thought it was the collective desire of the community to allow as many Pokemon as possible into Standard, or have I been missing something?
Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[lilyhollow]

I thought it was the collective desire of the community to allow as many Pokemon as possible into Standard, or have I been missing something?
Please correct me if I am wrong.

I don't even think we've even decided on a "collective desire." It certainly isn't to allow as many pokemon as possible into standard though.

 

[lati0s]

I think only GF should be able to change the metagame, or we get what i think we have now-a lot of junior modding by the community. Im not sure where people get the idea ubers are pokes too good for the metagame-i thought it was pretty clear from GF materiel what pokes are uber and which are legends and which are normal. Its my opinion that garchomp simply is not a uber;it breaks the mold of ubers. for one thing, its a evolved form and another, its seen in hands of trainers ingame and you can go on. I think if you compare its "mechanics of existence" for lack of better phrase, it shares little in common with ubers. Deoxys-e is an uber regardless if its stats are 20 and it only has splash-its STILL an uber. And i agree entirely with sirlin;i would much rather people use garchomp on me so i can play the legitimate game(and i almost feel every win i get with these bans deserves an asterisk-sure i won but what if i had played in the real world, not smogon sandbox?). I hadnt heard about scrubs before but it explains the bans entirely to me.

My .02$

so your saying that if deoxys had no moves other than splash you would still want it to be uber but if there was a Pokemon that learned every move in the game and had all base stats equal to 1000, and it was a normal non legendary pokemon you would want it allowed because it "doesnt fit the profile of an uber"

I'm sorry but you obviously understand nothing about competitive pokemon
ubers are exactly what you said they are not "poke too good for the standard metagame

 

[ultimifier]

I think only GF should be able to change the metagame, or we get what i think we have now-a lot of junior modding by the community. Im not sure where people get the idea ubers are pokes too good for the metagame-i thought it was pretty clear from GF materiel what pokes are uber and which are legends and which are normal. Its my opinion that garchomp simply is not a uber;it breaks the mold of ubers. for one thing, its a evolved form and another, its seen in hands of trainers ingame and you can go on. I think if you compare its "mechanics of existence" for lack of better phrase, it shares little in common with ubers. Deoxys-e is an uber regardless if its stats are 20 and it only has splash-its STILL an uber. And i agree entirely with sirlin;i would much rather people use garchomp on me so i can play the legitimate game(and i almost feel every win i get with these bans deserves an asterisk-sure i won but what if i had played in the real world, not smogon sandbox?). I hadnt heard about scrubs before but it explains the bans entirely to me.

My .02$

youve been a member of smogon for over two and a half years and you post this. i'm sorry to burst your bubble, but nintendo did not create this game to create a competitive community. because of this we have scratched nintendo's shitty normal/legendary way of viewing things and put pokemon in the proper tiers. This is why mewtwo is uber, IT WOULD OVERCENTRALIZE OU TO NO END, not because it is a "legendary" in the game.

away from bashing katawhatever. i feel that like many people have said, something needs to be banned if it is clearly the best strategy. using garchomp was clearly the best strategy, which is why all teams carried 3 checks to garchomp back in the day. likewise, in the deoxys era, every lead was either deoxys, or a lead built to specifically counter deoxys. skymin is a very good ppokemon, but the fact that heatran, scizor, salamence, zapdos and blissey are all used on many teams really limits skymins effectiveness.

all in all, i feel using skymin is not the best strategy in DPP and clearly does not beat out any other strategy, making him NOT ban worthy

 

[Peanut-Lover]

These bans are put in place and sometimes lifted to give the game a more fluid and dynamic play.

ScarfChomp and Yache Chomp were too overcentralising - If each team becomes built around defeating one set, it gets super boring. Thats why Deoxys was introduced, and then rebanned whden it was seen that it had no impact. The latis were also introduced, but they didn't make things better.

Then again, I personally believe that Garchomp was banned too early - Platinum should ahve been released, as more viable things to counter it were released. And equal threats arose (Skymin, Outrage Sala).


A proposition - set up an OU/Uber discussion like very early in DP (anyone who witnessed it can lol in retrospect with T-tar/Cressy calls to uber).