OU Opinions on SleepTrap legality

[magic9mushroom]

I figured since the issue came up in the Showdown bugfix thread, I'd get a show of hands for the different options.

So, what's your opinion on which of these sets of rules should be used?

These are the proposals I've seen around the community; if you see one I haven't noticed, point it out.

Please don't vote if you haven't ever played GSC.

1) No ban.
- Allows HypnoMissy and all other SleepTrappers regardless of set. Was standard in early GSC. Rationale is to ban as few things as possible.

2) HypnoMissy only.
- Ban is Misdreavus with Mean Look+Hypnosis+Perish Song. Rationale for this ban is that HypnoMissy is the hardest SleepTrapper to counter, as no unboosted attack in the entire game can OHKO it (strong STAB or Marowak Rock Slides OHKO Jynx, strong STAB Earthquakes OHKO Gengar, and Marowak Earthquakes or STAB Fighting moves OHKO Smeargle).

3) SleepPerishTrap only. (current Smogon policy)
- Ban is (sleep move)+(permanent trapping move)+Perish Song. Bans HypnoMissy, Gengar with the same set, Jynx with Mean Look/Lovely Kiss/Perish Song, and Smeargle with Spider Web/Spore/Perish Song.

4) SleepPerishTrap, SleepTrapPass and SleepTrap + Nightmare.
- Ban is (sleep move)+(permanent trapping move)+(Perish Song, Baton Pass or Nightmare). The extra things actually banned by this compared to "SleepPerishTrap only" are Spider Web+Spore+(Baton Pass/Nightmare) Smeargle and Jynx/Gengar/Misdreavus with Mean Look + sleep move + Nightmare. The rationale for this is that SleepTrap by itself has a (relatively) safe counter in the form of a Sleep Talking Pokemon that counters the SleepTrapper - Baton Pass allows you to counter that counter, while Perish Song and Nightmare are capable of killing any trapped sleeping opponent.

5) SleepTrap. (current Pokemon Online policy)
- Ban is (sleep move)+(permanent trapping move). Bans all variations of ML/LK Jynx, ML/Hypnosis Gengar and Misdreavus, and ML/Spore Smeargle. Rationale is that SleepTrap inherently defeats the spirit of Sleep Clause.

6) HaxTrap.
- Ban is (trapping move)+(move that can waste turns), where the latter includes Attract, Disable+Protect, and any moves capable of causing sleep, freeze, confusion or paralysis. The rationale for this ban is that such "hax" moves prevent 100% reliable counters because phazing or attacking could be prevented. The most common "HaxTrappers", when they're allowed, are Mean Look+Perish Song+(Confuse Ray/Attract) Misdreavus and Mean Look+Baton Pass+(Confuse Ray/Attract) Umbreon, but as Attract is a universal TM, any Pokemon with access to a trapping move can potentially HaxTrap.

7) All trapping moves.
- Ban is on all trapping moves. Simple, but overkill. I wouldn't note this, but a tournament claiming to be "ordinary GSC" has been run recently under this rule.

EDITS: Couple of grammar fixes. Nothing substantive.

 

[Jorgen]

Take Nightmare off that 4th option. If you're going to include it, you may as well add Ghost-Curse as well, but I don't think either is really a big enough deal to call out directly (if you're targeting them, wholesale SleepTrap ban is where you should vote). Hell, I'd rather use Psychic on SleepTrap Jynx; Spc. falls let you kill Snorlaxes, and it also lets you kill Cloys before they are likely to wake up, boom, and ruin your fun. Plus Nightmare has to be reset every time a STer resets its Rest.

I've called for SleepTrapPass Smeargle's head before, it's pretty broken in theory and just feels like a loophole for the existing SleepPerishTrap ban. However, I've never seen its carnage first-hand, nor do I think anyone else has in the last ~5 years or so, mostly because PO's way of banning it has made using it even in friendly matches exceedingly difficult. I'd say keep (3) implemented unless/until it becomes a problem in practice, not just theory.

 

[magic9mushroom]

I cannot edit the poll without deleting and recreating the thread.

 

[jaQ]

As long as the unwritten noob rule still applies to all misdreavus users then I'm satisfied with that.

If I could choose an option it would just be no misdreavus due to her awesome natural ghost typin. She's too tough to kill compared to the other 3 with the option of perish trap.

Personally always felt that pain split+protect set was almost as cheap as hypno trapping. So yea if I wanted to change anything it would just be to ban perish trapping misdreavus, and other sleep trapping. Since this isn't an option I just picked the hax one.

As for smeargle I never ran into enough of them to hold any grudges. Gengar with perish song+mean look and no hypnosis is lols. Same with Jynx, no problems there.

 

[magic9mushroom]

As long as the unwritten noob rule still applies to all misdreavus users then I'm satisfied with that.

Unwritten noob rule?

If I could choose an option it would just be no misdreavus due to her awesome natural ghost typin. She's too tough to kill compared to the other 3 with the option of perish trap.

Personally always felt that pain split+protect set was almost as cheap as hypno trapping. So yea if I wanted to change anything it would just be to ban perish trapping misdreavus, and other sleep trapping. Since this isn't an option I just picked the hax one.

What's wrong with Pain Split Missy? Or non-hax Perish Trap Missy in general?

 

[Crystal_]

I voted for SleepTrap for simplicity sake. Ultimately, what makes this strategy suspect is the combination of sleep + trap. Perish Trap just happens to fit well in the mix, so does Nightmare and Baton Pass, albeit not as effectively/reliably (because the Pokemon that uses it is not as reliable as missy). It's sort of like saying to ban Ho-oh vs Recover Ho-oh. For me I'd just keep it simple and ban all forms of sleep trap. My next option would be no sleep trap ban, but I find sleep trapping quite too annoying to pass it up.

I'm fine with protect/attract/cray/whatever trapping though.

 

[magic9mushroom]

I voted for SleepTrap for simplicity sake. Ultimately, what makes this strategy suspect is the combination of sleep + trap. Perish Trap just happens to fit well in the mix, so does Nightmare and Baton Pass, albeit not as effectively/reliably (because the Pokemon that uses it is not as reliable as missy). It's sort of like saying to ban Ho-oh vs Recover Ho-oh. For me I'd just keep it simple and ban all forms of sleep trap. My next option would be no sleep trap ban, but I find sleep trapping quite too annoying to pass it up.

I'm fine with protect/attract/cray/whatever trapping though.

Missy can use Mean Look/Hypnosis/Nightmare.

 

[Bedschibaer]

Misdreavus has a unique defensive typing and also has unique roles in the forms of being the best spinblocker and a good wallbreaker. I don't really consider it noobish to use missy, most teams are (unintentionally) prepared for it, for non hypno perish trapping missy that is, because with some luck that thing just takes down your best counters to it. But other missys aren't that big of a problem imo, you can argue that it can come in easily and wreak havoc onto mono normal attackers and similar, but tbh it has similar results to rhydon coming in onto your monolax every time, zapdos coming in on cloysters, ergo any hard hitter who gets a free switch.
But yea, i guess if something is noobish or not is still a subjective view. Not like curselax is exceptionally hard to play on paper.

 

[Crystal_]

Missy can use Mean Look/Hypnosis/Nightmare.

I know, I was just referring to Smeargle not being as reliable as Missy and therefore sleepperishtrap > batonpasstrap at least as far as considering bans is concerned. There's a reason Smeargle never runs PS or NM on a trap set but runs BP. My point was that it doesn't make much sense to apply some sort of sub-ban when the real issue comes from the combination of just sleep and trap.

 

[jaQ]

Unwritten noob rule?



What's wrong with Pain Split Missy? Or non-hax Perish Trap Missy in general?

1. I'm trolling a bit there, but seriously Misdreavus users are trying too hard. Losing raikou/zapdos to a lucky protect is bogus, and potentially other pokes after that.

2. It's cheap and lame. OHKO's are also cheap and they are banned. With them out of the formula the next lamest thing you can do is perish trap. You don't even really prepare for perish trap, you see it and hope luck is on your side. The purpose of banning ohko's was probabaly an attempt to make GSC more competitive and take away moves that resulted heavily on luck. Anyway in no means is missy close to the cheapness of ohko's. I just don't like it's style of killing and lack of counters.

I don't have a problem with non-hax trapping misdreavus but I've never seen one of these.

 

[Bedschibaer]

Scenario: missy comes in for free on your example monolax, to make perish trapping work properly he is obligated to mean look on the first turn, right? Mean look connects with the phazer you bring in. Since missy needs an unprotected turn to use perish song you can freely phaze it out when it's not in 2hko range, which it will most likely not be. Here comes the last moveslot into play. Thunder missy beats skarmory (don't have the calcs here now, but let's just say "beat"), pain split is useful for durability, but won't neccessarily help you perish trap certain mons, and now comes the real bullshit move - confuse ray. I might hold a personal grudge against confusion in general and i'm not going to argue if luck based things should be part of competitive play because that's unavoidable anyways, but confuse ray just gives you a chance of beating things you aren't supposed to beat. There is a difference to ohko moves though, confuse ray missy forces another unprotected turn on missy where something can happen, ultimately increasing the chances of phazing it or beating it. On the other hand ohko moves with a minimum of prediction only have one drawback, a potentially more useful (even though i doubt that's the case very often) moveslot. Example given rhydon on suicune, rhydon gets forced out, suicune predicts that and goes for sheer cold (idk if it even gets it in gsc, just an example here, you can exchange the mons and moves for that scenario). 30% chance to get a free kill on that full health incoming snorlax or raikou. Is that cheap? Yes, is missy cheap? Maybe, but by far not as cheap as that since it actually has counters. Missy is as cheap as using Jirachi in Bw, as using deosharp or genie offense in xy, but it's not broken by definition and it's part of the (luck-based) game we are playing.

 

[magic9mushroom]

1. I'm trolling a bit there, but seriously Misdreavus users are trying too hard. Losing raikou/zapdos to a lucky protect is bogus, and potentially other pokes after that.

2. It's cheap and lame. OHKO's are also cheap and they are banned. With them out of the formula the next lamest thing you can do is perish trap. You don't even really prepare for perish trap, you see it and hope luck is on your side. The purpose of banning ohko's was probabaly an attempt to make GSC more competitive and take away moves that resulted heavily on luck. Anyway in no means is missy close to the cheapness of ohko's. I just don't like it's style of killing and lack of counters.

I don't have a problem with non-hax trapping misdreavus but I've never seen one of these.

But you mentioned Pain Split. What's the problem with Pain Split Misdreavus?

Also yeah Thunder Missy is a thing and it's not haxtrapping most of the time.

 

[Mr.E]

I favor no ban but if you're going to do anything, pretty much what Jorgen said. Just ban Sleep Trapping all together because it's not like Nightmare is much worse than Perish Song in the same role. (You sure you have to re-Nightmare a Sleep Talker re-Resting? I don't recall that being the case.) What's important is that it's indirect damage, so there's no specific counter because everything dies equally fast. And that also covers your corner cases like Smeargle. Strictly speaking, Sleep Trapping on its own isn't a problem but you might as well blanket ban it since it looks stupid if your rules are basically, "Sleep Trapping isn't banned but anything useful you could do with it is banned." KISS.

 

[jaQ]

pretty much every misdreavus with thunder has protect or hypnosis in the last slot. What moveset are you thinking of that people use that isn't haxy?

What's the problem with pain split misdreavus? Your thinking too literally about the movesets and not about how this all goes down in a battle. The problem with pain split misdreavus is that you don't know it has pain split until it recovers the first time. The whole time you're wondering if it has a skarm killing move, hypnosis, or some double hax attract+protect crap, and you generally send your sleep talker first, or in the case you have heal bell, something that hits hard.

Anyway the pain split version is cheap to me because in my case I'd send raikou in and he'd be dead against the pain split set. Yes, once it's discovered that it's running pain split it becomes a lot less threantening but it's pretty annoying when you waste raikou thinking "at least missy will almost die and won't manage to perish trap another without some string of bs" then it heals ....

 

[magic9mushroom]

pretty much every misdreavus with thunder has protect or hypnosis in the last slot. What moveset are you thinking of that people use that isn't haxy?

Protect isn't hax. Protect alone doesn't allow you to successfully Perish Trap a phazer, because they'll Roar as you Perish Song.

 

[Jorgen]

Anyway the pain split version is cheap to me because in my case I'd send raikou in and he'd be dead against the pain split set. Yes, once it's discovered that it's running pain split it becomes a lot less threantening but it's pretty annoying when you waste raikou thinking "at least missy will almost die and won't manage to perish trap another without some string of bs" then it heals ....

That's not at all how you're supposed to play against Missy. Don't panic, go Phazer first every single time.

 

[magic9mushroom]

I'm not completely sure, but I'm starting to lean towards a total unban. Jumpluff/Alakazam/Raichu do all make life awfully difficult for HypnoMissy and it's fast enough that Sleep Talking phazers are also effective. I'm not totally sure yet, though; somebody want to set me straight on how hard it is to stop HypnoMissy with those sorts of tactics in practice?

IE: Do you have to devote more effort to reliably stop HypnoMissy than you have to devote to reliably stop Snorlax? Because if HypnoMissy's not more powerful than Snorlax, it seems hypocritical to ban it.

 

[Jorgen]

The banning philosophy for older gens seems to prioritize "cheap" tactics rather than "overpowered" tactics. So a single mon being powerful in a traditional sense (hits hard, walls hard, supports impeccably) is not weighted as heavily as something that straightforwardly restricts the opponent's options to praying for the odds (HypnoMissy, Wrap, and ADV BP all fall under this category). Not saying it's necessarily right, but it is a different way of thinking about bans that might make sense.

The thing with HypnoMissy is that you still run Protect on it. So Jumpluff comes in, is forced to Encore or die, and Missy just Protects. Then you switch out to your favorite Sleep Talker as Jumpluff is forced to burn another Encore. So even if you run an Encore abuser (whose sole value would be in stopping Missy, as Jumpluff does nothing active and, by needing to counter Missy, cannot use Encores to counter Lax, which otherwise gives it gimmicky value in "true" GSC; Zam dies if it tries to do anything other than switch into something like Missy that runs no attacks; and Raichu just wants to be Raikou), you don't completely shut Missy down.

As for ST Roar users, you're really pushing the odds there. Once you're slept, that's a 1/3 chance of pulling Phaze out of your hat. Sure, you still can Phaze, but the idea is that now you're straightforwardly forced to hope on a wing and a prayer. Granted, that happens with Confuse Ray too, but a 2/3 chance of Roar effectively failing with Hypnosis is a much bigger deal than a 1/5 chance of it failing with Cray. Not to mention that for ST Roar to be effective, you'd need to drop speed on mons that would traditionally consider such a set (Suicune, Raikou), and the slower Phazers generally don't want to run Sleep Talk (Skarm might be most willing, but even if you do get the Phaze off, having to let Skarm get slept means you're not out of the woods yet, as Lax has an opportunity to walk all over you).

 

[magic9mushroom]

The banning philosophy for older gens seems to prioritize "cheap" tactics rather than "overpowered" tactics. So a single mon being powerful in a traditional sense (hits hard, walls hard, supports impeccably) is not weighted as heavily as something that straightforwardly restricts the opponent's options to praying for the odds (HypnoMissy, Wrap, and ADV BP all fall under this category).

Wrap doesn't do that, though. You know as well as I that there are non-luck-based counters to it.

And yeah, like I said we're talking about the amount of effort needed to reliably stop something. If it can't be reliably stopped at all, that amount is "infinite" and it's a clear ban. I'm not strictly talking about power either.

Not saying it's necessarily right, but it is a different way of thinking about bans that might make sense.

The thing with HypnoMissy is that you still run Protect on it. So Jumpluff comes in, is forced to Encore or die, and Missy just Protects. Then you switch out to your favorite Sleep Talker as Jumpluff is forced to burn another Encore. So even if you run an Encore abuser (whose sole value would be in stopping Missy, as Jumpluff does nothing active and, by needing to counter Missy, cannot use Encores to counter Lax, which otherwise gives it gimmicky value in "true" GSC; Zam dies if it tries to do anything other than switch into something like Missy that runs no attacks; and Raichu just wants to be Raikou), you don't completely shut Missy down.

Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. Okay, point.

As for ST Roar users, you're really pushing the odds there. Once you're slept, that's a 1/3 chance of pulling Phaze out of your hat. Sure, you still can Phaze, but the idea is that now you're straightforwardly forced to hope on a wing and a prayer. Granted, that happens with Confuse Ray too, but a 2/3 chance of Roar effectively failing with Hypnosis is a much bigger deal than a 1/5 chance of it failing with Cray. Not to mention that for ST Roar to be effective, you'd need to drop speed on mons that would traditionally consider such a set (Suicune, Raikou), and the slower Phazers generally don't want to run Sleep Talk (Skarm might be most willing, but even if you do get the Phaze off, having to let Skarm get slept means you're not out of the woods yet, as Lax has an opportunity to walk all over you).

Not a 2/3 chance. 40% that Hypnosis doesn't connect and you get phazed, 1/3*6/7 that you get phazed with Sleep Talk on the PSong turn, and some chance of being phazed on one of the turns between PSong and the switch-out (I don't know the exact optimal strategy there).

 

[jaQ]

Having to waste a slot on your team keeping one of those 3 pokes around just to stop hypnomissy is setting yourself up to lose majority of battles. Please don't mention raichu ever again.

You probabaly forgot or haven't faced a hypnomissy in awhile. The worst part about hypnomissy is that you don't know it's a hypnomissy. You may not even know they have misdreavus. It kinda just shows up later in battle and is like "oh hai buddy, I'm just gonna kill 1 or 2 of ur walls and then sweep you with bellylax. u mad bro?"

It's nothing personal magic I just loathe this creature. The less people discuss using hypnomissy the less chance people will try to use it. Oh god what have I done.

 

[Shax]

I highly am in favor of unbanning Perish Sleep Trap. It adds another offensive style to GSC. It is was made Misdreavius OU, and not to mention allows new users of GSC to be able to compete in the sense of " I might not know how to do a 300 turn battle, but my Missy getting a KO or even two cuts that turn clock down significantly." I would say around 40 turns of PP spent per Pokemon as a good over or under in GSC. Furthermore Missy vets create TONs of mind games with their Gengar or Missy. Makes Smeargle playable. It's a great crutch incase you just can't beat certain Polemon.

 

[Shax]

Missy is awesome, please unban so we can have Missy last mon Hypnosis battles!

 

[magic9mushroom]

I highly am in favor of unbanning Perish Sleep Trap. It adds another offensive style to GSC. It is was made Misdreavius OU, and not to mention allows new users of GSC to be able to compete in the sense of " I might not know how to do a 300 turn battle, but my Missy getting a KO or even two cuts that turn clock down significantly." I would say around 40 turns of PP spent per Pokemon as a good over or under in GSC. Furthermore Missy vets create TONs of mind games with their Gengar or Missy. Makes Smeargle playable. It's a great crutch incase you just can't beat certain Polemon.

Allowing bad players to beat good players is a bug, not a feature.

 

[Shax]

You can always run Confuse Ray Missy and sometimes do better than Hypno Missy since they could have something already asleep from Sleep Powder/Lovely Kiss. Confuse Ray can outright kill at low percentage if you don't have Thunder or are vs a weakened Rhydon/Marowak.