SpeedPass in ADV OU

[goldmason]

Approved by the ADV OU Council, and the OGC

Over the last few years, ADV Baton Pass has been a constant source of discussion and argument. As the only form of reliable switch momentum in the tier (moves like U-Turn and Volt Switch were released a generation later), Baton Pass has been litigated to hell and back. Currently, there are 6 different restrictions that target Baton Pass in ADV OU: 'Smeargle + Ingrain', 'Baton Pass + Block', 'Baton Pass + Mean Look', 'Baton Pass + Spider Web', 'Soundproof, and 'One Boost Passer Clause'. Largely, the ADV OU Council and OGC have been reticent to further complex clause parts of Baton Pass, instead wanting to ban the move entirely, or at the very least remove the most contentious remaining part of Baton Pass: Speed Pass.

But you probably knew all that. Lets get down to brass tacks. With the ADV Ladder Tour coming up, the ADV OU Council wants to get opinions on Speed Pass and its place in the metagame. Full disclosure, this will likely trigger a suspect again, as it did in December of 2023. However, unlike that suspect, a Speed Pass suspect would not have additional unbans attached to it (Soundproof, Multipass) and would instead solely ban the ability to load Baton Pass + a move/item/ability that raises Speed (Dragon Dance, Agility, Salac Berry, Speed Boost, etc), again depending on the support in this thread.

BEFORE YOU POST

Please read the following, which go over Speed Pass in better detail than I ever could.
McMeghan's post about Agility Zapdos, with enablers like Umbreon and Smeargle
nal's post about Smeargle DDPass
star's last thread about SpeedPass, which led to the 2023 Suspect
star's 2021 thread about Baton Pass
Giraffe's post advocating for Speed Pass
vapicuno's video on Speed Pass

I highly encourage reading the above posts/watch the video to have a fully informed opinion on Speed Pass.

I also HIGHLY recommend reading the Tiering Framework, which had an update recently.

THINGS YOU CAN TALK ABOUT IN THIS THREAD

• Speed Pass
• Stat Pass
• Baton Pass

THINGS THAT WILL GET YOUR POST DELETED

• Multipass. The council is not open to unbanning Multipass.
• Sand Attack. This post by star details why: Sand Attack is inherently tied to Baton Pass in tiering, and a full Baton Pass ban is not being considered.
• Ninjask. Given the posts above from Nal and McMeghan, the council does not believe this issue is isolated to just Ninjask. If you have strong evidence to refute those posts, you may post normally. Mentions of Ninjask will not be deleted inherently, but posts arguing for a suspect exclusively for Ninjask to be banned without discussing the other issues related to Speed Pass will be deleted.
• Dugtrio. Dugtrio is not inherently tied to Baton Pass tiering.
• Endless Battle Clause (EBC). Very shortly after this post goes up, Trapping + Sand Attack on the same Pokemon will be removed from the tier; this is not a tiering action, but rather a limitation of the current implementation of EBC. The OGC will monitor ladder carefully for if further action is required.
• Anything unrelated to Baton Pass.
• One liner posts.

With all that said, feel free to discuss!!

(If you are not badged and unable to post, please fill out this form. You must have 25 posts total on Smogon to access the form.)

 

[Kollin7]

I voted Ban on speedpass in the previous suspect and would do the same again for similar reasons I laid out in PR back then (though my knowledge is a lot better than back then, so I'd probably articulate it a lot better now, but I'm a little too lazy to at the moment). Think it's a little bit dishonest when people wanna boil it down to only an issue of Sand Attack or Ninjask so personally I'm happy we can get speedpass entirely gone, though I will say I'm fearful that the refusal to consider them separately will incline many to vote DNB again.

 

[singingcrow]

I'm not the most experienced player, but it does feel like to me that any team without roar/whirlwind just can't be safely used on the ladder simply because of speed passing. and even with phazing, speed passing teams has multiple options for get around it. trapping, taunt, specific coverage moves like hp rock ninjask for moltres/zard can just throw a wrench in your plan and accuracy lowering moves just throws counterplay out the window and turns the game into a slot machine where you need to get noticably more lucky than the speed passer. I had several games against speed passers where they just said no to my phazing attempt and win anyway.

 

[BP]

I play ADV OU moreso as a hobby rather then to actually be good at it. However, I am familiar enough with the metagame to say that I believe banning Baton Pass/Stat Pass seems like an extremely suboptimal way to go. Dry Pass is too popular and is arguably a healthy aspect of the metagame. Banning the move as a whole is the worst possible route we could take. Killing statpass overall and keeping just dry pass is also silly. Removing the SD/CM Pass teams strictly because Speed Pass is unhealthy results in a net loss for the metagame. If we plan on actually taking action this time then its best to just complex ban Speed + Baton Pass.

 

[Zpanther]

I'm in favor of a speed pass ban after much thought on this over the years. Ninjask gets most of the heat for how linear and repetitive its gameplay is along with abusing sand attack and toxic to facilitate its pass. however imo speed pass Zapdos is even more scary to deal with considering its actually a good pokemon in its own right. smeargle likewise after being tortured on ladder by nals team i have to say creates alot of ridiculous situations and free turns and is maybe the hardest to even prevent from passing. We also really dont lose much with a speed pass ban overall. yes its sad ursa becomes basically unusable but the other recipients would still have a niche without (cune, meta, wak) so i dont see really anything to justify it staying in the tier. unlike the other stat pass strategies (cm pass, sd pass) speed pass can legitimately win you games on the spot if you get a turn or two right. this isnt an issue with the other two stat pass strategies so i think it speaks to the strength of speed pass and why its not good for the meta.

 

[L3W]

I do not and will never support a speed pass ban in ADV OU.

I have a lot of thoughts on this, but I’ll be brief here. Speed pass is valuable because it provides counterplay to Aerodactyl and Dugtrio. Dugtrio’s impact on slower, grounded mons is obvious, but Aero deserves a mention, too. It essentially gets to hold choice band, choice scarf, and heavy duty boots at the same time. No other tier has anything like it. Other tiers have strong scarfers, but they’re all hit by entry hazards. It seriously limits offense because it forces defensive counterplay onto an offensive team. Many have demonstrated so-called-“healthy” speed pass offenses that need speed pass to beat these two but don’t fall into the category of cheese/autowin/etc. I think those teams are worth preserving.

That said, anyone who’s laddered in the past year can tell you that speed pass to marowak absolutely ruins the gen 3 ou experience. I would like that removed in some way. I personally support a marowak and hariyama ban even though I know those aren’t popular.

 

[H!kari]

I think that the fact that this thread exists and that another suspect might happen is proof enough that the last speedpass suspect didnt give the community a satisfying option to end this debate. Unless the opinions of players who voted dnb to keep ZapPass legal have changed over the last few years, I think treating SpeedPass, Jask, and Sand Attack as separate issues will lead us back into the position we're currently in. If we repeat the all or nothing approach of the last suspect test, I think we will only end up with more threads like this 1 in the future and more suspect tests.

 

[xtinaxendrix]

"Trapping + Sand Attack on the same Pokemon will be removed from the tier; this is not a tiering action, but rather a limitation of the current implementation of EBC. The OGC will monitor ladder carefully for if further action is required."

LET'S FUCKING GOOOOO

this action in conjunction with a jask ban (in the form of a general speedpass ban) should take care of the majority of the johnaldesque shenanigans plaguing the ladder. i used to be a hardcore speedpass advocate but the cruel and unusual "let them sit with jask for two more years" punishment handed down last time has left its mark on me and i'm more than happy to show ursaring and marowak the door altogether if it means never having to "interact" with substitute + speed boost again. speedpass is, at the end of the day, a fun archetype (and i still wouldn't consider it to be inherently uncompetitive, fishy as it can be) but preserving other forms of statpass—and bp itself—is far more important to the identity and playability of the tier.

to those concerned about the tier losing out on fun and whimsy as a result of a speedpass ban, i would remind you that most of the primary speedpassers have other things they can pass that are just as fun.

ddpass smeargle -> bellypass
agipass zap -> subpetayapass (or lansat lol)
salacpass vap -> subpass (leftovers are pretty good on this guy! winning is fun)

perhaps an exception can be carved out for starf berry, the same way ancientpower and silver wind boosts are currently not counted toward the single boost clause due to their random chance element and other functionality. funny enough, if this exception remains, these two attacks will still be able to pass speed! i would argue that starf + bp should also remain legal if ap/sw + bp are allowed.

please, adv playerbase, do not dig your heels in for a second time. do you really want to still be playing against sand attack jask in 2027?

 

[verbatim]

The last time this came up for a vote I said that of the listed options I would prefer SpeedPass to DNB of the options listed but felt it was weird that Ninjask wasn't an option.

Since then, I have read through the Nal thread, the McMeghan post in the last suspect voting thread, and the updated tiering philosophy thread.

Speaking of, the last suspect thread on this topic opened as such:

As the title indicates, we've had this topic come up and various decisions made a truly ludicrous amount of times. The most recent BP related shenanigans have mainly involved Ninjask passing Speed Boosts, paired with techs like Swagger, Sand Attack, or Toxic to circumvent the usual counterplay.

It is possible I am missing something here, but to me it seems like Ninjask has long been controversial and whenever we do a vote there is an attitude of "augh here we go again" that juxtaposes really weirdly with the insistence on keeping the primary example used in the OP off the ballot and causing additional suspect votes every time DNB wins.

I voted Ban on speedpass in the previous suspect and would do the same again for similar reasons I laid out in PR back then (though my knowledge is a lot better than back then, so I'd probably articulate it a lot better now, but I'm a little too lazy to at the moment). Think it's a little bit dishonest when people wanna boil it down to only an issue of Sand Attack or Ninjask so personally I'm happy we can get speedpass entirely gone, though I will say I'm fearful that the refusal to consider them separately will incline many to vote DNB again.

I am sympathetic that Baton Pass writ large is very annoying to do policy with and that playing whack-a-mole sucks, but at this point we are looking at a situation where looping SpeedPass votes might very well end up taking more energy than Suspect Jask --> Reevaluate SpeedPass with the elephant exiled from the room.

If something else wins obviously this issue is put to rest for a long time, but while we're talking, I think a lot of people would be very interested in hearing thoughts about how future tests might change if DNB keeps winning.

 

[goldmason]

Posting as myself, not as the guy who posted this topic

I am sick of speed pass. I see replays like this one and wonder to myself how we still allow this in the tier. I would like to keep momentum switching in the tier, and would even go as far to support drypass/subpass only, but I don't think it needs to be this drastic.

Banning stuff like BP + Taunt or BP + Roar or BP + Spore is a bandaid, and support for bans like this are much more likely to end with statpass banned. We already have SIX limitations on Baton Pass. To add 2-3 more is to finally admit to ourselves that Baton Pass is the issue. I would not like to see Baton Pass banned.

I do not believe this issue to be unique to Ninjask, when we see Agizap + Smeargle + random shit like Mawile doing something (imo) much more toxic. I would like Ninjask gone too, and a ban on Speed Pass removes all of the elements I consider toxic at the same time, and greatly improves ladder health. I am fortunate to not see Ninjask stuff in tour.

The best argument I've seen is Lew's about Aerodactyl, but I don't think Spikeless being inherently weaker into Aero is worth keeping Speed Pass in the tier. I think we can find a better way to optimize spikeless against Aerodactyl personally.

 

[tigersuit]

After having finished my required reading, I want to voice my support of banning speedpass but also discuss briefly why I think a speed pass ban is unlikely to be the conclusive ending to the bp debate and why longterm a stat pass ban should be considered.

I generally think of stat pass from a balance perspective as falling into three buckets: viable + anticompetitve, gimicky + anticompetitive, or viable + healthy for the tier. I think only the first category of genuinely viable and anticompetitive manifestations of stat pass need to banned, but those lines shift as the meta develops and bp as a style is anti-meta and thus always evolving.

To briefly categorize, I would say

Viable + Anticompetitive
DD pass in all forms
Non-jask agi pass teams with multiple bp users
Non-jask agi + phasing move/taunt + bp

Gimicky + Anticompetitive
Jask pass (with or without the move that shall not be named)
Drum pass
Sd pass (probably a controversial opinion)

Viable + Healthy for the tier
CM pass
Zap agi pass not built around agi pass wincons specifically (dazi JI2 teams for example)

I consider bp to be an anti-meta, as are many other forms of offense, because it is generally weak into meta dominated by balance and defensive teams and bp teams have limited counterplay but counterplay that most teams strong into the meta already run. All of the types of bp I currently think are genuinely unhealthy for the tier involve speed pass, and maybe that is all that is required to fully fix the issue. But I am generally skeptical because I do not think that the types of game states the currently problematic types of bp teams abuse for consistent wins require speed pass to work, I moreso think these teams specifically use speed pass in their current form because it is simply the strongest of the options avaliable to them. Nal's smeargle wak vap team is an excellent example of how these issues can lie dormant and all it takes is a single well built team to create actually competitive concerns.

I love the flexibility of agi zap as a cleaner with optional pass for many styles of offense and I want to see this preserved along with cm pass which I feel is very healthy. I do have to wonder if the frequency of optional agi pass offense stuff is worth preserving when its clearly a small minority of speed pass teams, and given the institutional friction with even bringing this topic to a serious discussion in this community and the sledgehammer nature of tiering policy makes me skeptical anything but a full speed pass will resolve my problems with bp generally. Should this be suspected I will be voting yes to speed pass ban, and I am sure there won't be wide enough support for this position but I would also likely vote yes to full stat pass at this point as well.

And just to reiterate if the above didn't make it clear enough, jask is very much not the issue but I will shed no tears if the bug is gone.

 

[Johnald]

I would be in approval of banning SpeedPass. I understand the argument for restricting the counterplay that dedicated pass teams use to deny phasing, as it comes from a good place. The idea is to preserve SpeedPass for certain offensive structures like Agility Pass Zapdos on Italian offense, Substitute + Salac lead Vaporeon. Also Marowak's viability is somewhat attached to SpeedPass.

My issue is that banning phasing plus Baton Pass would hurt Jolteon and maybe zapdos on non-SpeedPass teams. Just banning Taunt plus Baton Pass or Smeargle plus Baton Pass would still leave ways to deny phasing. In my opinion, there is no perfect solution, but banning Speed plus Baton Pass is the most straightforward and effective option.

 

[mielke]

To begin my post, i'd like to give my honest opinion about speedpass: i believe that, at its core, speedpass is NOT BROKEN and COMPETITIVE. Speedpass has proven itself as a way to punish dug teams with spikeless offense (far from the only way to do it, but its consistent at it nonetheless).
The broken and uncompetitive mechanics that are built around of speedpass, in my opinion, consist of:

Roar+baton pass;
Taunt+baton pass;
Sand attack+baton pass.

Said mechanics are the core of what makes speedpass an issue to the metagame; they take away the phazing possibility from the player and make the counterplay of said teams based around continuous 50/50s, the opposite of what competitive pokémon should be. In my idealized scenario, those combinations of moves would be banned, since it doesnt affect the metagame in an inherently negative way (yes, some vaporeon and jolteon sets based around spikes would be unfortunately banned too, whoever thats a very small consequence for a large positive, maintaining the integrity of the metagame while keeping speedpass as a viable option to spikeless offense teams).

That being said, I understand that the possibility of banning said combinations of moves is not real. Most people would be aversed at adding more clauses to the baton pass ruleset, and would rather just ban the mechanic as a whole. Personally, as a community figure and a tournament player, i believe that banning stat pass would be a major net negative to ADV OU. The presence of stat pass makes many types of spikeless offense viable, and keeps teambuilding more dynamic. As a person who built teams used in many major tournaments this year such as SPL and Jimvitational, I believe that stat pass is necessary to keep the essence of ADV OU teambuilding, and people who are pro-ban are actively vouching for a less dynamic tier with a lazy approach to teambuilding.

In order to keep the stat pass mechanics in the tier and also deal with the hassles that speed pass generate to the playerbase, I believe that a speedpass suspect test would be sufficient to end the "uncompetitive stat pass" discussion. Its a rather simplistic way to look at things, however I dont believe we would be able to achieve bans such as the ones I discussed on my post earlier, and having the possibility to ban speedpass might be one of the only ways to save stat pass from being banned. Also PLEASE DONT RETEST SOUNDPROOF. Its not a can of worms worth opening and it will be still broken with speedpass banned. Banning speedpass would show that the community DOES NOT WANT FULLPASS AS A VIABLE STRATEGY, therefore soundproof should never be retested.

I would personally vote BAN.

As an afterthought, I would like to add that spikeless offense still has ways to deal with dugtrio without speedpass, and that it consistently has been used as an answer to dugtrio balance throughout the ages without speedpass. In the 2025 SPL and Jimvitational, its hard to find players that explore speedpass in that manner (mainly Fruhdazi, but River also had a speedpass replay in SPL), and most of the spikeless offense punishes dugtrio balance teams in other ways. Fakes and Pak used many spikeless teams in their runs and they were solid against dugtrio without the presence of speedpass. In sum, i believe that its a minor nerf to the playstyle, but not banning speedpass today and maybe banning stat pass as a whole in the future would be a MUCH BIGGER nerf to the playstyle, so its important to try to avoid that in the long run.

 

[5imian]

My thoughts on this issue entirely come from my experience as a TO and active community member. I'm not a highly skilled player; I hope my thoughts can be a welcome addition to the discussion.

-

For a long time, I have looked at ADV OU as potentially the most competitive tier in Pokemon Singles. For a game defined by luck and risk management, it's consistently the tier with the strongest reputation for the better player winning.

For a long time I've supported a ban on Ninjask specifically. I viewed its presence, alone, as the most uncompetitive tool in the tier. However, more and more I believe I was mistaken in that assessment; especially since Nal posted his team and argument for why speed as a whole needs addressing. Speedpass Zapdos, while it has its own niche on fair offense teams as counterplay to Aerodactyl and Dugtrio on specific offense 6's, has been shown through players like Roro and others to be just as uncompetitive when the sole focus of the team, rather than as an additional tool. Preserving the fair use of a broken element does not make the broken version of that element any more acceptable for the tier.

To double back and address the Aero/Dug argument- offense has other tools to punish both, and Aero itself has never been an oppressive tool in the game; reliance on rock slide inherently limits it, and offense teams often run multiple checks to it outside of speed pass zap (pert/meta as a pair, flygon teams seeing an uptick in use) that lead to better outcomes than relying on agipass setups to win in endgames.

If Dugtrio becomes problematic because of this change (and it almost certainly won't), we can suspect it then. Broken beats broken is bad game design, and tiering in itself is a form of game design.

Alongside that, I feel the presence of speedpass as a team archetype is incredibly restrictive on laddering; which should in theory be the most accessible place to practice and learn the format. However, the constant presence of speed pass -> cheese abuser (wak, yama) in mid ladder functions as a gatekeeper for ladder play, forcing an extremely specific style of team (double/even triple phasing) and limiting the ability for newer players to have the learning experience they need to fully understand the game through ladder play. The Quality of Ladder limits the growth of the game as we know it.

It is for these reasons that I support a Complete Ban on speed pass, and hope the community at large chooses to do so.

 

[SEA]

Posting not on behalf of the council, but rather as myself.

As somebody who has been one of the only users of speed pass in major tournaments for the last few years (especially with any real consistency, both in usage and in success), I thought it would be a good idea to chime in and post my own thoughts on the matter.

If you have talked to me about this issue at any time before, you know how I feel about it. I have felt strongly about wanting speed pass gone for at least 3 years now. I don't really have a super coherent thought about why I think it's broken, but I will try my best to outline why I feel it should have been gone long ago. Before getting into that though, banning Roar + BP is a nonstarter. This is literally just a set you can run on Zapdos or Jolteon. My Zard CM Pass team, for example, that you've probably seen around at this point uses Roar + BP Zapdos. It both helps a great deal with Suicune/Raikou and is the only real way for that team to get around an opposing team's pass matchup.

I feel as though speed pass is quite uninteractive at its core, and its presence in the tier can much more often be used for dumb purposes rather than good ones. I think unlike other forms of progress in Pokemon, it circumvents a lot of natural, conventional counterplay for already dangerous threats. Let's take Jirachi as an example: Jirachi, if you sacrifice its item and 75% of its HP, can get a speed boost. It has to make huge set sacrifices to do this, and it is absolutely not worth it. However, if you pair Jirachi with AgiPass Zapdos (something that is just already good), you don't have to make a single sacrifice on your Jirachi set while also getting the benefits of bypassing some of Jirachi's biggest problems. Obviously, this applies to a ton of the best speed pass abusers: Marowak, Suicune, Ursaring, Tyranitar, Metagross, and there's obviously more but I don't really want to list them out.

How is this different from other stat passing, you might ask? Well, the actual setup process is significantly easier with AgiZap. Zapdos is a pretty bulky Pokemon that is immune to Spikes and forces in a very specific subset of Pokemon. Celebi, the primary passer for SD and CM Pass, can be pressured into having the pass blocked by Skarmory, Aerodactyl, Dugtrio, or even something like Claydol Explosion (there's a few more options here too). Notably, CM Pass also isn't nearly as good or instantly game flipping. Your offensive Pokemon are still answered in their usual conventional means, Pokemon like Charizard or Starmie are still outsped by Aerodactyl and Dugtrio and safely revenged that way. On the other hand, Zapdos has a few nasty things it can do to ease the pass, one of my personal favorites being Light Screen. It makes the actual pass to the Pokemon way safer: for example, it can allow you to actually just hard pass to Marowak in the face of Blissey Ice Beam. Speaking of Blissey, another wonderful thing you can do is stay in for 1 turn vs Blissey to scout and eat a potential Twave, and now you're slower than the Blissey! This gives you a completely protected Agility pass and protects your potentially Twave weak swap (i.e Jirachi) from ever having to face it. Zapdos can also click Substitute, because it only really needs Thunderbolt, while Celebi has to try and fit a lot of potential moves.

I also want to acknowledge that there is some "legitimate" use for speed pass as a Dug/Aero punish, but I think it's both still super cheesy and way too much of a reward. That's not to take away from the creativity of the people attempting to reinvent speed pass and find new uses for it. I also personally don't believe that you even need speed pass to accomplish this? I think the idea that we need to keep speed pass around specifically for these Pokemon on this style is ridiculous, it's just a different way to punish these Pokemon. I also think it circles back around to what I was saying above wrt to it being uninteractive.

 

[Jimothy Cool]

In the interest of getting something done I also support a Speedpass ban.

My thoughts on the strategies that would be affected:

Ninjask Pass
Complete cheese that almost everybody hates. You know exactly what Ninjask is doing when you see it and you can't stop it because of its passive Speed generation by completely safe means.

It forces you to have a Non-Skarm Roar user basically. Or you have to hope you can keep breaking their sub while Threatening the Speed receiver enough. A very extreme matchup fish that makes Laddering a frustrating experience.

Would be completely dead with a SpeedPass ban which is great.

AgilPass Zap
This is the other big one and some think this would be unfortunate collateral. I view AgilZap as more honest than Ninjask cause it's more interactive, Zap can only go for the Speedpass and passing speed is not completely safe, it costs a turn to set up Agil and if you're damaged you can never do it again.

It's also less completely all in on SpeedPassing usually.

However, you're often taking advantage of Zap's ability to force in specific defensive Mons and get the Agil turn there. Depending on the scenario you can win on the spot. Part of the appeal is the chance of this free win.

If this strat is gone forever I wouldn't mind too much. It looks good when placed right next to Ninjask Pass but in essence it's a very similar idea.

DD Pass Smeargle
Some of these teams use the Spore + DD Pass as their all in wincon, some use DD Pass as an alt gameplan on a more standard Smeargle spikes which is interesting.

This kind of team is fairly niche and I rarely see it. I don't have a problem with these teams but it's minor collateral I think, not worth preserving

Salac Pass
Vaporeon Lead is the most famous user of this but Smeargle and even Medi can also use it.

It's a fun option on HO that I think is one of the cooler applications of Speed pass in the meta. Perfectly fine and balanced in my eyes.

Would be a shame to see this banned but it is just 1 option on 1 kind of team. Honestly, these Salac mons don't even click BP in every game either, so I think they'd still be able to function running Salac with some other option to fill the gap.

 

[vapicuno]

The metagame since the last vote has tended towards sandless blobby teams that must rely on roar to deal with stat boosts like speed pass since they can’t do any damage (not even sand chip):

/+1
+2

Arguments suggesting speed pass is broken due to roar counterplay are relevant mostly to this sort of team.

These teams are already very good. Do you like this part of the meta?
Do you like watching cunedol or Superman mirrors?
Do you want to make them even better?

Their gain is offenses’ loss. This is not even accounting for speed pass being a tool for grounded tar/meta/fighter offenses to overcome dug.

—-

As for arguments about the coin flipping nature of speedpass, I don’t see a strong difference with the typical zapdug vs blissey interaction.

 

[YubelVT]

I've played quite a bit of Gen 3 OU and, especially recently, have been relatively bipolar with my skill level. I was once top 25 on ladder for less than 24 hours (I still have that screenshot somewhere and can go find it if proof is needed). With my "credentials" being established, let's get to the topic at hand.

Speed Pass, in a vacuum, is not particularly egregious. In theory, there's a lot of counterplay, especially for bulkier teams with lots of phazing. There are problems with it in practice however

1. There are a small but still significant amount of UUBL pokemon that, upon getting a patch to their speed, become insanely difficult for even Skarmory to switch into (and that's not even mentioning the few things in the lower tiers that will also become suddenly better than Kyogre when given speed boosts). This leads to games, ESPECIALLY on ladder, that boil down to "did you prevent the speed pass? No? well if this rock slide flinches you lose on the spot". This, in turn, leads to extremely linear but also extremely volatile gameplay because, due to cheese players realizing that lead Zapdos doesn't telegraph speed pass, you aren't going to know whether or not to play around speed pass until it's too late, and after a few games you realize that it's better to always play around the speed pass into lead Zapdos, which has the consequence of leaving you worse off in a lot of ways if your opponent isn't on speed pass.

2. Speed Pass, and ESPECIALLY jask pass, are noob traps in one of the worst possible ways. They're easy build arounds that don't teach anything to new players and they're very easy for noobs to lose to in games that quite frankly should not be played. I'm speaking from experience here when I say that ninjask is one of the most frustrating things to encounter as a newer player.

I used to be of the opinion that Ninjask should be banned or otherwise dealt with independently of general speed pass so that the discussion can be had without the cicada in the room, and while I do still think that's probably a good idea for different reasons, I've lately become of the opinion that speed pass as a whole is extremely toxic and needs to go. I'm sorry to the normal people who use speed pass for normal reasons, but cheesers have co-opted it and it's time to either force them to learn or force them out.

 

[Spreek]

As someone with a good amount of tour/highish ladder experience running ddpass as well as being one of the only proponents of whirldrum yama fullpass, I strongly believe that both of these things should go.

While I don't think these strategies are so broken that they would fully take over the meta if left unchecked, I believe the adaptations needed to handle them properly would warp the meta in a way that does not make the tier better. It may also be the case that ddpass could be optimized further (Drumyama full pass definitely could be). But both teams operate fairly similarly in terms of fishing very favorable matchups vs some balances and further using early ambiguity about the goal of the team to get off the ground. So certainly there are ways to play better -- and surely the playerbase would get better at handling them as time went on, but much of that would involve loading less of certain traditionally good comps and making more aggressive/suicidal callouts at times. Neither of which seem like worthwhile adaptations to require of the playerbase to preserve a strategy that few are eager to keep in the game.

I am no fan of Ninjask either, but this situation does somewhat differ from Jask who has much fewer autowin matchups vs good teams and who brings so little strategic ambiguity that its counterplay amounts to "load a good team and play well." In that respect it has caused very little meta adapation in the current ruleset besides making ladder players slightly more likely to load a second phaser (and also making many a ladder player want to pull their hair out).

Unfortunately, there does not exist any happy solution to this problem without significant collateral damage. Attempts to cut anti-phazing + bp inevitably lead to even more complex bans, along with cutting out roar bp zap or jolt that sometimes get used on non bp cheese. And a full speed pass ban would nuke some non cheese semi pass teams which Vapicuno and Fruhdazi and others have made cases for (and that most people don't have major issues with on its own).

In my opinion, a Smeargle + BP ban (or possibly replacing Smeargle + ingrain ban with it -- unless there was a smeargle with ingrain and no pass problem?) would likely be the best route to go, if action short of a full speedpass ban is desired. This has existed in the past without breaking anything too important, as BP smeargle is rarely used outside of cheese. It obviously solves ddpass and would significantly weaken most fullpass cheese which tends to heavily rely on smeargle to earn subs (for example, Roro's fullpass 6 linked in the OP and virtually all the yama fullpass ive built). I can't say for sure that it would kill fullpass but it would likely nerf it to the point where it wouldn't be super meta relevant.

I would support a complete speedpass ban or a Smeargle + BP ban and believe that either would be an improvement over the status quo.

Postscript: Attaching a few more fullpass replays:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2394954355-1uct9g4m7u9y0ewhgwii526lom9inhupw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2394587465-dm2i1fpgjssinyl8tjoup98xahlhwc1pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2394595872-llrig1cxelfe07btm8oyw3u2trjmuuypw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2394564307-p1s7v47inf19nj3h6th7podsv002ieapw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2394494455-cfegfbqx0gijm8d3jdwl8g6kgue8fqupw

 

[johnnyg2]

I wanted to post here to give a different perspective on speed pass as someone who’s been around a long time and has faced just about every variant that’s ever existed, from full pass chains when I started playing w ingrain smeargle, to the various taunt chains in the mid 2010s, to RIENaRIEN around covid time that adapted to 3 passers, to taunt pass that got around mime ban, to the optimized mag Ninjask (sand attack is garbage but Ninjask is pretty free to run it) passes that could use just about anything, to zap pass, to … *falls asleep*

The tldr is that I think speed pass should be banned, full stop. I think the collateral damage of losing some cool nondegenerate speed pass w Zapdos and salac passing is small but regrettable. If that’s too much, then suspect it, and show a metagame that’s never really existed before.

Speed pass in adv has existed largely since Smogon has existed — you can find some absolutely ancient stuff like This that describes how old full pass chains used to be played 20 years ago. Speed pass at that time was rare bc it was seen as “less honorable”, but since those days are long long over, it occasionally pops up today and of course is all over ladder which is annoying to face. I still think that if a strong tour player committed to bringing a version of speed pass at least a game every set for a full big tour (jimtational, adv revival, classic, etc) and won, we actually might see tiering action.

I wanted to address the two anti ban arguments so far in this thread, as well articulated by Lew and vapicuno: 1) speed pass provides counterplay to Dugtrio and aero for spikeless offense and 2) speed pass is a nice check to fatter teams and removing it makes balance more powerful than they already are.

For 1), I think the arms race for very aggro offenses with and without spikes over the last twoish years has helped dispel this argument. I think the evolution of registeel/bb mence/endpert on spikeless has helped create teams that yes do not enjoy the two checkmate revenge killers in the tier, but help put enough pressure on those teams to make it less comfortable (bb Dd Mence w optimal play counter sweeps a lot of skarm dugs, and registeel + refresh off/end pert is very frustrating for aggressive and fat aero teams). Yes this is one team iteration of teams, but I feel you can get away using Zapdos as your flier on these teams without having to resort to speed pass. Zapdos still provides value (helping w waters, spreading twave, subpass, light screen etc) even when you need to tech other options here for bliss teams when it is walled. I don’t think we need to cater to these specifically in my opinion. I am excited to see how these teams further evolve, with or without speed pass in the picture.

For 2), I feel like this is a stylistic distinction of adv. I want to link this post from BKC talking about bw 4 years ago and shameless plug my own post on bw gems 3 years ago. Bkc’s stuck with me back then (finch also made this argument but I couldn’t find it) bc they talked about consistency and sticking with certain team styles bc they are consistent against a wide variety of threats. Having a fun, competitive tier means you need to be able to fallback on balance, or else you’re constantly running around trying to plug holes that you can’t fill w the options available. The Bw gems post also discussed the challenge of piloting an extremely unpredictable offensive aspect of a metagame — something that speed pass advance parallels (to a lesser extent) in my opinion. Part of what makes a metagame balanced is the ability to have a classic style to fall back on and then the rest of the metagame is trying to have outs to that style. The level of centralization in BW at that time doesn’t exist in ADV today or ever, but I think the fact we don’t need something as dumb as speed pass to break through SkarmDug or Superman balance in adv. I think there are plenty of tools in the tier that both exist now and have yet to be optimized that could help w these teams.

I wanted to post some replays of how I could see spikeless offense evolving past speed pass to beat balanced teams.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-812913?p2

Abr uses a spin boom offense w Lax lead and Regirock to open up for aero. Lax + special check (super celebi) helps weaken pivots to aero while regi + star have twave synergy. Regirock + Meta are strong booms and good into opposing aero while star spins for them. A really good example of a spin spikeless offense

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-849967

I think Weather clear will (if it hasn’t already) take over for speed pass to set up suicune on non-speed pass mixed offenses w Claydol. We’ve seen many variants of this team over the years, but I think fruhdazi/giraffe were inspired to fit ludi on this team alongside cb Hera to open up calm Cune. Hera is a classic danger mon against balance that will almost always ko something while resetting the weather really helps Cune beat opposing balance that drop roar Cune.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-847966

This last team from violet river is a nice example of a non spin spikeless offense built around vapi lead and trades + Loom. Vap lead could absolutely have salac here, but lefties helps you survive when you really just need vapi to get you off well. Suit tar + BB fb Lax helps open up the agility meta.

There are many others, but these are just some example. Thank you for reading!

 

[Siglut]

Hello all. I have sworn a solemn oath not to post in the Policy Review subforum, and yet here I am.

My belief is that smeargle ddpass and zapdos agilipass are very comparable - both have the potential for uncompetitivity and both have the potential for further exploration in the builder to the betterment of this tier. For the reference I will include this replay wherein my last pokemon is gengar and if I remember correctly my salamence has fire blast / hpgrass / brick break / rock slide. The team, to me, is much more interesting than the contours of this particular game. This team has a pretty high skill ceiling and a modular gamelan based on how well you can scout the matchup before it's time to bring smeargle out. Despite the fact that I secure an obviously very strong matchup and win against an opponent who is stronger than I am I do think that this is a healthy element in the tier which promotes skill expression and clever teambuilding, and as vapi alludes to its strongest matchups are against the stalls that consistently frustrate people anyway. Anyway, the team in question has 3 modes: playing your typical mixmence gar spikes offense that easily chews through a lot of balances, ddpass to mixmence which matches up fairly well until into offense and offensively oriented balances, and ddpass (multiple boosts) into tar / meta which has a very strong matchup against fat teams. I believe that this type of play should be encouraged and that there is more exploration to be done in the world of modular baton pass strategies - I understand giraffefromholland and Shitrock enjoyer have used this concept with agility zapdos, which I have tried on a few occasions in the past and never succeeded too well with.

I am also unconvinced that there is a serious issue posed by speedpass at the moment. I understand that it generates a lot of complaints but it seems to me that there is typically an acceptable amount of counterplay. The volatility of the strategy allows it to take advantage of high-variance moves (sleep-inducing ones... what did you think I meant?) and attempt to end the game very quickly if the randomness goes their way. However, in most of the high-ladder speedpass replays which I have seen there is either a clear misplay from the speedpass opponent or several consecutive hard reads from the speedpass user. Let's take this one that goldmason posted above - had Jumpy sent the gyarados after sacking something else he probably would have won this game. It has been said that this would have been a win if johnald had gotten more sleep turns early on, but I don't think that's true - it would have been considerably worse for Johnald, of course, if the hariyama were allowed to belly drum on the same turn that the swampert wakes and roars it out, and even presuming that hariyama does get to +6 safely it doesn't have any speed boosts. In addition, Jumpy's team is not anywhere near standard, and I do not believe we need to cater tiering to improve the matchup spread of armaldo gyarados balance. I am unconvinced, at this point, that these strategies are so strong that they need to be banned.

A taunt + BP ban, in my opinion, is an ineffective half-measure as roar + BP accomplishes similar-enough things. Banning sleep moves + BP is too complex for my taste - it feels disingenuous to say "you can use either of these very high-variance strategies, just not together." Seems like encroachment upon the territory of Groudon and Earthquake. Also, it likely is a half-measure as well. I would prefer a speedpass ban or a full ban on sleep moves, although we should have the understanding that a sleep move ban would not affect the baton pass situation all that much.

Thank you for reading this. I would like to end this post by saying that the existence of tiering philosophy and framework is necessary for any large body, like smogon or even like the adv community, which wants to engage in tiering. Furthermore, I think that the Smogon tiering philosophy is pretty good. This is not to say that exceptions can never happen or that the tiering policies should never change, but if your proposal for tiering action goes outside of established policy there should be a strong justification for that beyond "I think this will solve the issue with minimal collateral."

 

[LBN]

Well, I don't intend to talk about anything from a metagame pov, I don't really play ADV beyond roomtours and maybe some fun side tours as tests. That being said, I plan to talk about the policy review angle on this because frankly this has gotten ridiculous.

6 Limitations.

6 bloody limitations and it still isn't enough? I understand that older generations and metagames get a degree of leniency in regards to complex bans and the like but I'm sorry this is taking the piss. I think its worth asking ourselves how many restrictions is too many, because everything about ADV OU Baton Pass is a crystal clear example of why we don't do complex bans to preserve stuff that just isn't worth saving. I don't intend to argue what metagame benefits might be preserved by keeping dry pass, and honestly I don't think it matters. If something like Dugtrio becomes unreasonable as a result of banning baton pass well you go for banning Dugtrio. This wild goose chase of trying to limit it as little as possible before people find a new and creative way of breaking baton pass has gone on way too long. From Mr. Mime to Sand Attack to chain passing to speedpassing entirely over the course of what? Almost a decade?

I propose the following, Ban Baton Pass outright or deal with what you have. I understand this isn't going to be a popular stance for people who main ADV but at the same time this has gone way too far for way too long.

 

[Eeveeto]

I think full pass with 6 BP Mons and no restriction is healthy and has enough counterplay. I do understand that I am in the 0,1% users that think this way.

In regards of the current problem, I agree with the above post. If there are 6 restrictions and the playerbase thinks those are not enough, keep trying to adjust the "problem" is pointless.
My personal prefered course of action is this one: BP fully unrestricted>Full BP Ban>No Stats Pass allowed>Do nothing>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Whatever other weird Tier change is proposed.

Btw, always wanted to ask, what is the exact reason for which Soundproof is banned instead of Mr. Mime? Are you really afraid of Electrode or Exploud receiving boosts? If so, why is Suction Cups (Octillery and Cradily) not banned, since its an even superior version of that ability? I thought non Mons Ban were used as last resort.

 

[gastlies]

I understand that older generations and metagames get a degree of leniency in regards to complex bans and the like but I'm sorry this is taking the piss.

It's really just ADV that gets this special treatment. It's allowed to get 6 complex bans to preserve their beloved baton pass but RBY isn't allowed to do one wrapper per team (much more simple than any previous BP ban for the record). Also DPP wanted to ban Iron Head at one point (again literally banning one move is much less complex than any kind of BP restriction that ADV has had) but that also got shut down.

These complex bans for BP are an extremely blatant violation of tiering policy. For a forum that strives to always avoid complex bans it's shameful that ADV Baton Pass has been able to get away with violating this precedent for such a long time. I don't care if the heavily restricted baton pass is the most "ideal" ruleset for the tier. The problem is that other generations, both past and current, have had similar proposals for tiering that are equally or less complex than the current restrictions on ADV baton pass, but they were shut down. Just bite the bullet and ban Baton Pass, or allow other gens to have complex bans to improve their metagames.

 

[Sato07]

El pase de BP no está roto; son equipos que hacen que el constructor sea más diverso. Hay varios tipos (como muchos ya han mencionado en esta publicación, disculpen la redundancia). Estos tipos incluyen:

BP DD (Smeargle), BP con Berrys, BP CM, BP SD, BP Belly Drum, BP Spe.

Anteriormente, los equipos de BP tenían más herramientas, que gradualmente perdieron con el tiempo y con la adición de cláusulas (solo puedes usar un movimiento Boost en todo el equipo si el Mon tiene BP) y ciertas prohibiciones (Mr. Mime).

La gente se queja de BP porque puede ser molesto, pero los equipos de BP Spe (que son el foco de esta conversación, en realidad) son bastante malos y pasivos. Solo necesitas presionarlos lo suficiente para ganar la partida, ya que sus sweepers o el sweeper necesitan el Boost en Spe para hacer algo.