(ORAS) unbanning more than one baton pass user on the same team

[WECAMEASROMANS]

Hi. Our latest and final addition to BP clauses state that if a pokemon has speed boosts in conjunction with another boost in another stat, they are not allowed to use the move baton pass. This effectively shuts down all, if you will, "cancerous" forms of baton pass teams, and is widely approved by the community. Given this decision, wouldn't it make sense to undo the previous two BP bans (only 3 BP mons per team, and then no more than one BP user per team)? Multiple baton pass users will be much more manageable since they can't pass speed + other boosts anyways. My team was rejected in the teambuilder because I tried to use a choice specs sylveon with baton pass + a CM baton pass celebi and I'm sure many other users have this problem occasionally as well.

 

[shiloh]

I've also run into this problem, and even though it really does suck it's probably a necessary evil. If you look through the other BP thread dEnIsSsS posted a team and replays of a non speed passing BP Chain, it was still functional enough to be deemed broken by him. Here is the post http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...tegies-baton-pass.3537569/page-7#post-6298898.

 

[Zarel]

On the other hand, I wonder if the limit could be set to 2 or 3.

 

[Mazinger]

yea full support, I wanted to use togetic and subpass jolteon in spl week 8 and spent a good 30 minutes venting in #bigs before going with a choice team instead, swear it had potential...

 

[WECAMEASROMANS]

i mean i personally feel like even if all 6 mons on your team have baton pass it still wouldnt be a problem cuz they cant boost speed at all with other boosts. if ppl here dont agree with that im sure expanding the amount of bp users on a team to 2 or 3 couldnt hurt at all

 

[Zarel]

i mean i personally feel like even if all 6 mons on your team have baton pass it still wouldnt be a problem cuz they cant boost speed at all with other boosts.

Did you read the second post in the thread?

 

[dEnIsSsS]

the only issue I see with setting the limit to 2 or 3 is that the BP Clause would no longer be a team-builder ban, but instead we would have an in-battle clause, which I don't support at all.

 

[Zarel]

the only issue I see with setting the limit to 2 or 3 is that the BP Clause would no longer be a team-builder ban, but instead we would have an in-battle clause, which I don't support at all.

Why wouldn't it be a teambuilder-level ban?

 

[dEnIsSsS]

Why wouldn't it be a teambuilder-level ban?

Zapdos
Ability: Pressure
- Agility
- Baton Pass

Mew
Ability: Synchronize
- Calm Mind
- Baton Pass

what would happen if someone has both these Pokemon in the same team? None of them boost Spe + other stats on the same set.

 

[Agent Gibbs]

You could have the teambuilder look at all movesets that include Baton Pass as one big moveset when determining whether or not the team breaks the clause. So if you have an Agility / Baton Pass / Thunderbolt / Substitute Zapdos and a Calm Mind / Baton Pass / Stored Power / Hyper Voice Sylveon on the same team, then the teambuilder basically sees one big 7-move Pokemon with Calm Mind + Agility + Baton Pass and shuts you down. Not sure how that would work from a programmer's standpoint, but eh, it's an idea.

 

[Afti]

If you had an in-battle Baton Pass ban and you wanted to make sure players were aware of the issue in the teambuilder, you could just give them a warning on the team overview page. Check to see if they have a team that can violate Baton Pass clause and, if they do, stick a warning up above their list of mons in big red letters?

This team has the ability to violate Baton Pass Clause. This team is legal for play, but you will be disqualified if you pass stat boosts to Speed and another stat at the same time.

 

[Lord Death Man]

Would it be possible to have dry passing / possibly even subpassing count differently? I know there's still some potential for brokenness (assuming they can pass a boost around - say Espeon/Passer/Mr Mime/Real Pass Target) but it also seems like it just wouldn't be broken in practice.

I could always be missing something vital, but it doesn't seem to keep the original problem with BP if we changed the teambuilder clause to limiting BP + Boosts on one mon while leaving BP itself unlimited, and especially helps with low tiers when someone wants to use, say, scarf Medicham and Nastypass Togetic together. BP might end up a stronger playstyle but single boosts are already very strong against specific playstyles as-is and letting people in very specific scenarios. Other than Espeon and Mr. Mime this doesn't seem to have the potential for far-reaching negative consequences to me (once again, could be missing something big, like passing cotton guard to something that then passes a fat sub that passes to a set-up sweeper) while helping restore drypassing to lower tiers. Dodging pursuits and getting "switch priority" can be pretty crucial.

I hope this makes sense. It's also a complex enough idea that I could see it not really being worthwhile and has some potentially powerful consequences.

 

[HJAD]

I'm a more NU player but I have come across this problem all too many times when building some teams recently.

Most recently it came when I tried to pair Musharna with Baton Pass and Mawile with Baton Pass both on the same team. I found this incredibly frustrating because I'm not using Baton Pass for any "antics" or broken properties, I'm using it as a momentum gaining move for some of my wallbreakers, similar to U-Turn or Volt Switch except without the damage element. In this regard, I think we all agree Baton Pass isn't broken.

So how do we fix this? We can't implement up to 2 bp'ers with current regulations because, as Denis stated previously, that would force us to run an ingame Baton Pass clause which I don't think is right. Instead, I suggest that a team can run upto 3 "dry" passers or 2 Baton passers with 1 being a "dry" passer.

In theory, expanding the bp clause to this would remove the "broken" part of bp, and instead use it for the momentum gaining aspect that can be acknowledged as not very broken.
The problems I see with this are that it might be a bit complicated to explain to new players, but because BP is the most complex ban we have had to date, what's the harm in making it slightly more complicated?

Any opinions?
Brief Overview: change from One Baton Passer that can't boost speed + one other stat ---> 3 dry passers or 1 boost passer + 1 dry passer on one team.

 

[blarajan]

Yeah I think the best way to do it is allow for unlimited number of Pokemon to have Baton Pass, but to only allow one user of Baton Pass to have a boosting move, which prevents Speed and other boosts passing. That way, dry passing in tandem with legal baton passing becomes eligible, and you can keep it as a teambuilder ban.

 

[Zarel]

Zapdos
Ability: Pressure
- Agility
- Baton Pass

Mew
Ability: Synchronize
- Calm Mind
- Baton Pass

what would happen if someone has both these Pokemon in the same team? None of them boost Spe + other stats on the same set.

I wasn't notified about this reply, for some reason, so sorry for the late reply.

Anyway, it would be better than nothing to allow either only Speed-boosting or non-Speed-boosting on the entire team. It's a bit more restriction than ideal, but it's at least more permissive than the current situation.

 

[dEnIsSsS]

I think this is getting complicated and I don't like any of the proposed ideas that have been presented in this thread so far. I think nothing has to be changed in ORAS OU, and when I talked with McMeghan (like yesterday) about this subject, he told me he and the rest of the OU Council think the same way. The issue WCAR had is something very situational and most OU players didn't complain about anything so far. ORAS OU has very few viable dry passers (only Celebi, Lopunny, Medicham and Sylveon I think?), so if you ever find an issue when team building, it isn't too dificult to get around it. BW has even less viable dry passers (only Celebi apparently). Moves like Volt Switch and U-Turn are also used for a reason lol. However, I feel things are very different in lower tiers, where there are a higher number of viable dry passers and single boosts passers (such as CM Musharna). I know it is nice when a same clause can be used to cover all tiers, but since people are feeling the clause is more restrictive than necessary, why not making your own clauses/ban lists to get around that? Transitivity has been broken, the tier leaders are free to to come up with a better approach for their respective metagames (ie. ban Shell Smash + Baton Pass in all the lower tiers; ban Combusken from NU; ban Espeon, Smeargle and Venomoth from UU etc). So yeah I don't think the lower tiers have to use the same clause that is currently applied in OU.

 

[AM]

Nothing needs to be changed for ORAS OU. Let's not fiddle with BP again unless there is an absolute necessity, which isn't now.