Obviously me being super busy caused me to bit late on the discussion of dynamax train since it's already been banned and the discussion thread was locked, but ive been given the ok to talk about it here so that's what I'll do.
Cutting to the chase I think it should NOT have been banned yet and ill elaborate further in this post.
One of the big arguments against dynamax was that it was unpredictable. Honestly I don't agree with this for a couple reasons. The main one being that in all honesty, it really isn't unpredictable or random at all. Dynamax is a mechanic that heavily rewards thoughtful play and heavily punishes clicking. When dynamax is used the vast majority of the time it has obvious tells that let you know if it will/won't be used. It's much much more like educated predictions opposed to the 50/50 people are saying it is. Every single turn you think about things like "what are the chances they make a double this turn?" "Should I take the chip to get rocks or should I just kill his mon" "What's his gameplan?" Dynamax falls into that same vein of questions. "What mon would he want to dynamax against me?" "What does he gain by dynamaxing here?" "How can I prevent him from making the best of his dynamax?" in addition to others. Having to consistently think about things like that is difficult and requires focus, but that's a good thing. You want the people that are willing to put more focus and effort in to be rewarded.
Another argument is that it's far too good for the meta, and honestly I don't think that this is fair. To argue against this first we have to know what being "too good for the meta" actually means. In my opinion it's something that if you aren't using you are put into an immediate disadvantage and/or something that requires you to use sets that are otherwise bad to stop it. The first one obviously makes no sense because everyone has dynamax there isn't just "not using it". It actually applies to z moves and megas from gen 7 more because you could make a team without z moves or megas but doing so put you at an immediate disadvantage but I digress. The main one is the second one. Honestly I don't believe that dynamax forces you to use trash sets, just sets that are different. Mons like protect leech ferrothorn or bunker pex are fantastic this gen. Not only are these sets that you could justify using regardless, they also go a long way in containing dynamax. As well as mons like encore whims, foul play heavy duty boots mandi, etc. These mons are each very good against the vast majority of dynamax set ups and would probably be ran anyways on some or most teams of their type. Does it restrict teambuilding in some way? Of course. Does it restrict it to the point that it's broken? I would argue no.
That flows into the argument that it invalidates certain types or makes other types broken. Once again I would disagree. Obviously dynamax is extremely good against most types and insane against a select few but that doesn't matter because monotype was never about equalization of the types. We're talking about complete invalidation. Does dynamax really make it so that some types are just unusable? I would say no. If we look at a type like fighting which is generally considered to be one of the worst types in the meta right now, even that type isn't completely invalidated by moves like max airstream running everywhere.Physically defensive colbalion with thunder wave (which is another set that probably would've gotten some use anyways since it gets rocks and is a good switchin for most things for fighting regardless) goes a long way in containing most max airstream users. Especially if you have your own dynamax. You could make the argument that relying on a dynamax to beat a dynamax shows that it's more broken but A. Colbalion isn't really relying on it since it can help regardless and B. Dynamax containing itself is what keeps it from actually being broken in my opinion. <- applies after colbalion is released but not currently. The best way for it to deal with it pre colbalion is offensively. HO fighting is obviously the only way to build it so potentially dynamaxing terrakion while surrounding it with mons that make it more difficult for gyarados to set up is the best way to handle it pre colbalion release. Oviously this is only one situation but u can't go through every bad type and their way to beat all the popular dynamaxers at least not in this post. The only type that you could argue is invalidated now is a type like rock, but that type is invalidated anyways by that fact that it's a mono grounded, no water immune type in a meta where water and ground are 2 of the best types.
The last argument that I'll get into is the argument that it's broken because of the fact that when you dynamax you get your choice broken. This is the one that I agree with the most but im not sure that I can say that makes it bannable. Let's look at the popular pex vs excadrill example. You go into pex from gyarados on the excas scarf rock slide. According to the example there's a 50/50 now of whether he'll dynamax quake this turn or not and whether you should dynamax yourself or switch. There is a lot wrong with this example. For starters I would say that non bunker pex is an outdated pex, and that bunker pex makes it a lot easier because clicking rock slide again on the bunker is a much harder play to make than switching out or dynamaxing. Secondly, you can't present a Pokemon example in this way because it just doesn't work. There is so much that goes into each click in a game that "you are in with pex vs a locked in scarf drill" just isn't enough. It's just not a big enough picture to get an accurate grasp on the situation and it makes it look like whether you dmax or switch or scald/recover is just a 50/50 when in reality it never is.
To further clarify my personal stance on the matter: I personally don't think that it's a broken mechanic just that we haven't been given enough time to at adapt and settle into a meta. Therefore I disagree with the ban at this time.
Thanks for reading this shit took way too long to type.
Cutting to the chase I think it should NOT have been banned yet and ill elaborate further in this post.
One of the big arguments against dynamax was that it was unpredictable. Honestly I don't agree with this for a couple reasons. The main one being that in all honesty, it really isn't unpredictable or random at all. Dynamax is a mechanic that heavily rewards thoughtful play and heavily punishes clicking. When dynamax is used the vast majority of the time it has obvious tells that let you know if it will/won't be used. It's much much more like educated predictions opposed to the 50/50 people are saying it is. Every single turn you think about things like "what are the chances they make a double this turn?" "Should I take the chip to get rocks or should I just kill his mon" "What's his gameplan?" Dynamax falls into that same vein of questions. "What mon would he want to dynamax against me?" "What does he gain by dynamaxing here?" "How can I prevent him from making the best of his dynamax?" in addition to others. Having to consistently think about things like that is difficult and requires focus, but that's a good thing. You want the people that are willing to put more focus and effort in to be rewarded.
Another argument is that it's far too good for the meta, and honestly I don't think that this is fair. To argue against this first we have to know what being "too good for the meta" actually means. In my opinion it's something that if you aren't using you are put into an immediate disadvantage and/or something that requires you to use sets that are otherwise bad to stop it. The first one obviously makes no sense because everyone has dynamax there isn't just "not using it". It actually applies to z moves and megas from gen 7 more because you could make a team without z moves or megas but doing so put you at an immediate disadvantage but I digress. The main one is the second one. Honestly I don't believe that dynamax forces you to use trash sets, just sets that are different. Mons like protect leech ferrothorn or bunker pex are fantastic this gen. Not only are these sets that you could justify using regardless, they also go a long way in containing dynamax. As well as mons like encore whims, foul play heavy duty boots mandi, etc. These mons are each very good against the vast majority of dynamax set ups and would probably be ran anyways on some or most teams of their type. Does it restrict teambuilding in some way? Of course. Does it restrict it to the point that it's broken? I would argue no.
That flows into the argument that it invalidates certain types or makes other types broken. Once again I would disagree. Obviously dynamax is extremely good against most types and insane against a select few but that doesn't matter because monotype was never about equalization of the types. We're talking about complete invalidation. Does dynamax really make it so that some types are just unusable? I would say no. If we look at a type like fighting which is generally considered to be one of the worst types in the meta right now, even that type isn't completely invalidated by moves like max airstream running everywhere.
The last argument that I'll get into is the argument that it's broken because of the fact that when you dynamax you get your choice broken. This is the one that I agree with the most but im not sure that I can say that makes it bannable. Let's look at the popular pex vs excadrill example. You go into pex from gyarados on the excas scarf rock slide. According to the example there's a 50/50 now of whether he'll dynamax quake this turn or not and whether you should dynamax yourself or switch. There is a lot wrong with this example. For starters I would say that non bunker pex is an outdated pex, and that bunker pex makes it a lot easier because clicking rock slide again on the bunker is a much harder play to make than switching out or dynamaxing. Secondly, you can't present a Pokemon example in this way because it just doesn't work. There is so much that goes into each click in a game that "you are in with pex vs a locked in scarf drill" just isn't enough. It's just not a big enough picture to get an accurate grasp on the situation and it makes it look like whether you dmax or switch or scald/recover is just a 50/50 when in reality it never is.
To further clarify my personal stance on the matter: I personally don't think that it's a broken mechanic just that we haven't been given enough time to at adapt and settle into a meta. Therefore I disagree with the ban at this time.
Thanks for reading this shit took way too long to type.
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