SwagPlay, evaluating potential bans (basic definition of "uncompetitive" in OP)

[CL0V3R]

the bouncers aren't very good in actual competitive battles, lum berry is only usable once and sacrifices your item slot, own tempo makes you sac far better abilities 95% of the time, and magic coat makes you sacrifice a moveslot that could have gone to a better move.

just to counter one move. (lum and magic bounce are still pretty useful things, but own tempo?)

Magic coat isn't a bad idea in general with all the will-o-wisp, toxic stallers, spore, T-wave ect, entry hazzards, Taunt, ect .
So it's not just a counter to Swagger+Prankster. I agree a bit with the own tempo.
But really Lum+Magic Bounce+Magic coat are all useful.

 

[Petrico94]

Interesting idea but this has been part of Liepard's strategy the whole time and probably the only way it was viable. Then again, Klefki is better typed and might have been the one to ruin it for all future pranksters. I don't think pranksters are the real problem, you can usually counter Sableye with a fire type or someone who isn't burned and this should be true with any prankster depending on what they use. The pokemon and the ability shouldn't be banned. Even though Swagger is cheap, Flatter isn't as bad because it boosts special and not foul play or confusion damage. If you want to ban all non-damaging confusion attacks that would be fine but at the same time, confusion isn't viable being completely random compared to sleep and doesn't last forever like paralyze so what's the point of banning confuse ray?

 

[Skellelington]

Can you outline these good arguments for me? Here's what I've seen so far:

-random completely unviable NU/RU Poke checks/counters it, so it's not broken
-I've beaten it before, so it's not broken
-if you get lucky it's not a problem, so it's not broken

Those are not good arguments.

Volbeat can counter almost all swagplayers besides Thundurus, as he has Prankster himself. I run this little badass in OU and he does just fine. He can baton pass Tail Glows, substitute against statuses (swagplay), and encore is lethal to anything trying to set up if you can predict it.

Volbeat is possibly viable in OU as a baton passer and can counter swagplay completely with a substitute.

EDIT: Sorry if this causes confusion, I'm not outlining anything, but I sure as hell aren't going back 3 pages just to reply to you. You WERE asking for counters earlier.

I'm actually kinda for banning Boo Boo Keys and co.

 

[Aaron's Aron]

I have not actually faced a team with this strategy implemented, but from what I have read and researched about the strategy previously, it sounds like it could work. Personally, I don't like that. While I do think the game should always have some luck to it (like critical hits and whatnot), I do believe that this is taking it to the extreme. Having the game be entirely luck reliant is bad in my opinion. I do not think that we should ban the individual pokemon however, as it does ban many of them, most of which have other viable uses. I immediately thought no to that. Of the other two choices posted on the first page, I at first thought that the banning of Swagger + Prankster was a good idea. However, I then saw some people post that if we did that, fast pokemon could utilize the same strategy, instead of using Prankster. So now I think that the best option would be to ban Swagger entirely. I am still open on my opinion though and am not dead set in this way, but at the moment, if I had to make a decision, I would say ban swagger.

Decision at the moment: Ban Swagger

 

[xDesch]

I've faced this tactic a lot of times, and I can say that I hate it. I see people mentioning Own Tempo and Magic Bouncers... and Numel (wtf?) to counter this. Whith mega evolutions introduced in this gen, I feel that teambuiding has been very restrictive. And if I have to make sure that my team will have a good matchup against teams abusing this silly and luck reliant strategy. Using pokes only to counter a single strategy or a single poke, is pretty stupid, because if your opponent don't have it, you'll be at a disadvantage. It's like using gastrodon in ubers, it's just not a good idea.
Pokemon is a luck reliant game, people fish for Scald Burns and Thunder paralyzes all the time, but when people start buiding a team based around something that actually just is a coin flip to begin with... it's just really uncompetetive. It's maybe not that common, but it is still a strategy that allows really bad players to beat really skilled players, using sheer luck. This strategy has counters, but that has never stopped anything from beeing banned. Also, sand veil and snow cloak were also banned, despite being based around luck.
I support banning the move Swagger in conjunction with Prankster. Without the priority, this won't have nearly as much success anymore. Something that allows bad players to beat good players is worthy of a ban, imo.

 

[Air]

Three Words:
Espeon
M-Absol
Xatu

I'm done here.

 

[mlaw3k]

It's not about finding "counters" or is swagplay "beatable". I don't think any decent player has problems with beating it. The simple question people should as themselves is does the combination of Prankster + Swagger + TW reduce the meta to a coinflip every turn? The mathematical answer to that question is yes, it does.

Now if people on the whole are ok with that fact and a coinflip based meta is desirable in the meta, then by all means don't ban it. But if the whole point of the ruleset here is to make the game more about strategy than chance then you need to have an honest look at whether or not swagplay combinations should be allowed to be used.

Especially when you have people trolling up the ladder running multiple swagplay mons.

 

[Kim Jung-Illumise]

This is just ridiculous. Really, the only people who would complain about this would be extremely frustrated people, who have experienced it a couple times. If they were to actually learn something from playing with para-swag based pokemon, they'd have the brains to change their team.

If this problem wasn't so prominent, people wouldn't have to change their teams, they wouldn't encounter them so much, and this thread never would've happened.

Alas, people are satisfied with their teams, obviously not enough to fight this problem of para-swag (which is "common" in OU, yet not common enough for people to understand that their team needs some changing), and instead of using their brains in changing their team, they go to a thread and make all their complaints. It is this kind of mentality that evades me - if it is a problem, it's obviously on both sides of the particpating party.

Essentially, it is up to us to fix this problem, not some mod, if we are to get this nooby way of playing out of the game.

Now, all we have to do is just find a counter.

Perhaps priority moves, or lum berries?

 

[Redolent]

I think it's telling that a lot of people who are completely opposed to a swagplay ban are pretty much just posting "lol stop being butthurt" as their main argument for keeping it

Frankly I'm not that bothered either way but

Not only are you factoring in on the worst case scenario, a 6-man team full of sweg, but this is the nature of the game. Also, 5 times a day? Is someone forcing you to play this game every second? If you don't like it, just don't play in the tier so much/go to a different one or at the very least build a counter team if you just have to have that OU goodness. Or just forfeit if the sight of a swag play team scares you that much. If playing this game is about having fun, then points don't matter too much these days.

6-man teams full of Swagplay are actually very common and it's time to stop pretending they're there to do anything other than troll. Your "is someone forcing you to play the game" comment is pretty much just you being obnoxious, obviously I enjoy the game when I'm playing against people who are using strategies not entirely built around dice rolling.

• Get two bulky pokemon with regenerator and swap back and forth when the opponent foul plays without a swag boost, laugh at their pitiful attempts to play dirty
• Pack one pokemon with Own Tempo and laugh at their pitiful attempts to confuse you with their swag before killing them with the ATK boost they gave you, and say thanks afterwords

yeah I'm not gonna do that because I actually want to have a team that can win games against good players. You simply won't reach the upper ladder if you're limiting your teambuilding with niche anti-swagplay measures like those.

you
can
switch

I've already explained why that's not a reasonable expectation so if you want to start arguing in circles you'll have to do it with someone else

 

[Lazyboy0337]

-The luck is HEAVILY swayed in favor of the SwagPlayer, just based on probability. I don't mind a little luck thrown in but a 25% chance of your Pokemon even being able to do anything at all, that's not the same as taking a chance on Focus Blast's 70% accuracy.
-What are these "many common" Pokemon? Seriously, I don't see any being suggested that aren't specifically tailored to beat this strategy, therefore potentially losing out on viability to perform their normal role.
-Luck isn't, but uncompetitiveness is.

The first turn only works 45% of the time for the SwagPlayer due to Swagger being 50/50 and accuracy of 90%. That's not "HEAVILY swayed".
Zapdos, Blissey, Rotom, Chansey, Sylveon, Prankster Substitute/Taunt, M-Absol, Xatu, and Espeon off the top of my head.
Everything in competitive pokemon has some factor of luck. Can't avoid it.

 

[Aragorn the King]

Three Words:
Espeon
M-Absol
Xatu

I'm done here.

Did you see TooMuchSugar's calcs?

Unlike Double Team, however, SwagPlay does not require you to use incredibly niche stuff like Aerial Ace and Swift. You could use any of a number of walls that do practically no damage to themselves with Confusion (Rotom-W in particular is great anyway), and if you want a more offensive answer you could always run your own Prankster (Thundurus-I comes to mind) with Taunt or Substitute. Basically, there are a variety of good ways to handle it, unlike evasion and Moody.


4 Atk Klefki Foul Play vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Espeon: 106-126 (38.9 - 46.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
4 Atk Klefki Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Xatu: 108-128 (32.3 - 38.3%) -- 2.5% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
4 Atk Klefki Foul Play vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Absol: 87-103 (32.1 - 38%) -- 94.6% chance to 3HKO

While Espeon can do nothing back, Xatu has just an 8% chance to 2HKO with Heat Wave, and Absol can't touch it without running Fire Blast.

 

[DEMo_Gorgon47]

Also, with the new boon to Abilities like Infiltrator and moves like Hyper Voice, even more Pokemon can bi-pass the Substitute and smack the Pokemon behind, sometimes even using the Boost to make a clean KO (here's looking a your Crobat).

Really, the new trend of SwagPlay should not be viewed as something terrible, but as a test to find new ways to play the game. If we stop the game from naturally evolving with bans, we aren't just killing off Pokemon and moves from the metagame, but creativity of the players themselves.

 

[Dread Arceus]

Some points I've seen supporting Swagger:
1. You can switch out...and get half your team paralyzed, and possibly eaten up by entry hazards. Now your weakened, paralyzed team is bait for Mega Garchomp, Mega Heracross, or any manner of insanely strong albeit slow bulky attacker.
2. It's not an effective strategy...and neither is Double Team. Still, it turns a game of RNG chess in to a series of coin flips. Your point's pretty meh
3. It can be Taunted...but not if the taunter is the one switching in, and hits itself to death. Oh, and also, the same Pranksters with priority Taunt are used by Parafusion teams.
4. Electric/Ground types can't be paralyzed...and can still kill themselves over a series of coinflips.
5. Hax exist...but not to the extreme of a 50/50 every turn. The chance of full paralysis is a simple 25%, a Focus Blast miss is 30%, and Play Rough is a 10% chance of missing (and there's still people who want the acc checks removed on these moves, even with the lesser chances of them happening). Also, with all these, there's ways around them, like not using lower-accuracy moves and running Electric/Ground types to avoid paralysis.
6. Magic Bounce beats Swagger and Thunder Wave...and all of the Magic Bounce users besides Mega Absol (who takes a Mega slot and can't switch in until after it mega evolves) are weak to Foul Play. Furthermore, none of them are too great: Espeon is the only one of the four that is OU, and it's considered one of the worst OU mons anyways.
7. Infiltrator/Sound moves/multi-hit moves...can still be haxed to death.
Finally, who wants to run Thundurus or Espeon on every team? Good lord, that makes teambuilding boring.

 

[CL0V3R]

It's not about finding "counters" or is swagplay "beatable". I don't think any decent player has problems with beating it. The simple question people should as themselves is does the combination of Prankster + Swagger + TW reduce the meta to a coinflip every turn? The mathematical answer to that question is yes, it does.

Now if people on the whole are ok with that fact and a coinflip based meta is desirable in the meta, then by all means don't ban it. But if the whole point of the ruleset here is to make the game more about strategy than chance then you need to have an honest look at whether or not swagplay combinations should be allowed to be used.

Especially when you have people trolling up the ladder running multiple swagplay mons.

Why doesn't everyone meet in the middle? Maybe a new ban on having more than one swagger/prankster/foul play user on a team.

 

[Balsty]

I made an account on here years ago, and I follow the threads from time to time. That being said, I haven't actually used this account until now.

This is completely retarded. I run Klefki with Swagger/Twave/Foul Play/Safeguard because Prankster Safeguard shuts down SwagPlay, among other status related strategies.
I don't see any bans for ParaFlinch strategies, which are essentially the same thing.

If your main argument here is that this strategy takes no skill to use, then you should be banning a helluvalot more things that take no strategy to use. For example; Talonflame with Gale Wings and Brave Bird. Aegislash is borderline, he requires some prediction to use, but he can take pretty much any SE hit, SD up, and OHKO back with Shadow Sneak.
SwagPlay requires more skill to use than priority Brave Bird, and Dragonite with a Lum Berry, or in fact, anything that utilizes a Lum Berry set takes a big dump on SwagPlay.
There are pokemon who resist Confusion.
There are pokemon who bounce back Swagger and completely laugh at SwagPlay.
Banning M-Luke? Eh. You could have just banned NP/SD on him and called it a day.
Banning M-Kanga? Fine. Good. That is legitimately broken.
Banning M-Gengar? Same as banning Wobbuffet.

This is why most other communities for competitive battling shun you guys these days. This thread right here. You wonder why people say "Oh, pfft, fucking Smogon."? This is why.

That's just my two cents on the matter.

 

[ClashMech]

6-man teams full of Swagplay are actually very common and it's time to stop pretending they're there to do anything other than troll.

6-man swag teams are everything in OU, then?
Whether you think it's to troll or not, it's a valid strategy, with valid counters. If you don't want to work around a strategy to beat your opponent, then why are you playing?

Your "is someone forcing you to play the game" comment is pretty much just you being obnoxious, obviously I enjoy the game when I'm playing against people who are using strategies not entirely built around dice rolling.

...That has nothing to do with my question. I mean, is someone forcing you to play this game all the time? There are alternatives. I get annoyed from other games too. So I take breaks.

yeah I'm not gonna do that because I actually want to have a team that can win games against good players.

What is your definition of a "good player", exactly?

You simply won't reach the upper ladder if you're limiting your teambuilding with niche anti-swagplay measures like those.

And yet you said that 6-man teams full of swag play are very common. You're contradicting yourself, now.

I've already explained why that's not a reasonable expectation

No, you tried. Tried and didn't do very well.

so if you want to start arguing in circles you'll have to do it with someone else

Oh, good, now I can eat.

 

[Ajwf]

I think it's telling that a lot of people who are completely opposed to a swagplay ban are pretty much just posting "lol stop being butthurt" as their main argument for keeping it

yeah I'm not gonna do that because I actually want to have a team that can win games against good players. You simply won't reach the upper ladder if you're limiting your teambuilding with niche anti-swagplay measures like those.

I resent that you figure that everyone against swagger staying legal are incapable of arguing.

More so, let me point out that 'niche anti swagplay teams' have a full style named for them... It's called stall. If anything, heavy offense is the most bothered by this and people are less bothered as you go down the offensive charts. You might say "Well, then it's destroying a style so ban it" but I point you to Kyurem-black, a pokemon completely unfair to stall teams for the last few years. Imo, Welcome to Hell, HO. You all decided to shit on stall last gen, see if I care this gen.

I'm fine with a pranksterplay ban, but confusion in general is a giant overreaction as I've stated in my posts throughout this thread.

 

[Disaster Area]

I think that there are a lot of counters to this strategy, but relatively few of them are viable, and few are full counters. As it is, banning swagger is less restrictive to creativity and teambuilding than not banning it.

Sure you can counter it with magic bounce, own tempo, etc. just as you can counter sleep with insomnia, safeguard, etc. The point is that you have to usually find niche counters to counteract these strategies, and whilst there are a few that arent [thundurus and the magic bouncers and smeargle] you cannot expect every team to run one of the same 5 pokemon just to counter one strategy.

The trouble is all of you arguing against it are using ridiculous arguements saying but this and this mon counter it and this and thismon is viable and counters it but you don't see that it is restrictive to teambuilding in being forced to run counters to certain strategies.

The trouble with all of you arguing for the ban is mostly that you're not being so clear in pointing out those arguing against its' ways, or are complaining about the issue and not dealing with it appropriately.

I personally thing Swagger should be banned because it introduces large luck-based elements that are uncompetitive and restrictive in teambuilding and creativity, although I could appreciate having a complex ban of swagger + prankster for the same reasons as the difference between the 2 bans is slim but merits discussion.

Whilst people say switching is a legitimate counter-strategy, a well-built Swagger team can abuse the free turns created to set hazards or deal damage or spread status, which yes can be dealt with by certain pokemon, altogether is restrictive upon teambuilding and uncompetitive. Most counter-strategies can be punished, and a well built team can easily deal with problematic checks and counters to its strategy, often with only one or two pokemon prepared to deal with them.

And some of you are mental/have something against smogon/are just trolling, as usual.

 

[pick]

swagplay lets you beat good players

nope
if they get beat, they need to get good.

 

[CL0V3R]

Some points I've seen supporting Swagger:
1. You can switch out...and get half your team paralyzed, and possibly eaten up by entry hazards. Now your weakened, paralyzed team is bait for Mega Garchomp, Mega Heracross, or any manner of insanely strong albeit slow bulky attacker.
2. It's not an effective strategy...and neither is Double Team. Still, it turns a game of RNG chess in to a series of coin flips. Your point's pretty meh
3. It can be Taunted...but not if the taunter is the one switching in, and hits itself to death. Oh, and also, the same Pranksters with priority Taunt are used by Parafusion teams.
4. Electric/Ground types can't be paralyzed...and can still kill themselves over a series of coinflips.
5. Hax exist...but not to the extreme of a 50/50 every turn. The chance of full paralysis is a simple 25%, a Focus Blast miss is 30%, and Play Rough is a 10% chance of missing (and there's still people who want the acc checks removed on these moves, even with the lesser chances of them happening). Also, with all these, there's ways around them, like not using lower-accuracy moves and running Electric/Ground types to avoid paralysis.
6. Magic Bounce beats Swagger and Thunder Wave...and all of the Magic Bounce users besides Mega Absol (who takes a Mega slot and can't switch in until after it mega evolves) are weak to Foul Play. Furthermore, none of them are too great: Espeon is the only one of the four that is OU, and it's considered one of the worst OU mons anyways.
7. Infiltrator/Sound moves/multi-hit moves...can still be haxed to death.
Finally, who wants to run Thundurus or Espeon on every team? Good lord, that makes teambuilding boring.

I will say you forgot magic coat which everyone seems to be ignoring.
Latios/Latias, Togekiss, Jirachi, ect. Can all learn it.
In fact a good majority of pokemon can.
It has uses outside of this, and while it takes up a move slot it's not any worse than any other clerical move.
In fact it could take over defog if you predict well. Since it bounces back entry hazards.

 

[NoahStar]

I usually try not to put my opinions in on these types of threads, but this is ridiculous. I am absolutely ashamed that we are even discussing the banning of SwagPlay.

Is the SwagPlay strategy based on luck? Yes. Is it a terrible strategy? Yes. Does this mean we should ban it? Absolutely not.

This is Pokemon. There will always be a bit of luck (read: probability) in the game no matter how much we don't like it. Otherwise, we would be able to ban critical hits, moved that don't have 100% accuracy, paralysis, and even abilities like Poison Point.

Unlike most luck-based moves in the game, SwagPlay is easily played around by good players. Switching, using Pokemon that have a low base Attack stat, and Taunt all come to mind. Gen 6 even gave us the ability to hit the Pokemon that abuse this strategy behind a sub with sound based attacks (Hyper Voice MGardevoir and Sylveon take pittance on most SwapPlay users).

Honestly, this is really just a matter of telling the butt-hurt players to get over themselves. When SwagPlay becomes as broken as Moody, please come talk to us.

 

[TheGhost983]

I'm in favor of banning Swagger or Swagger+Prankster. While it is possible to beat swagplay teams, it's all a coin flip. The nature of how these moves rely on luck is uncompetitive and does not belong in the metagame.

 

[Jaiho]

Again though I do have to bring up there isn't only one counter for this.
Like I've said before Magic Coat is a really easy way that most pokemon can counter this.
Lum berry is another.
Magic bounce is another.
Own tempo is another.
It's not like with spore last gen, there a quite a few more counters that aren't niche.

Magic Coat is not a move you can just stick on any poke, plus foul play still shits on deoxys, the most common user
Lum berry works once
Magic Bounce users die to Foul Play
1. There is no viable Own Tempo user 2. If I have to use Own Tempo just to counter Swagplay, I take away team synergy

A smart Swagplay player will have a couple Swagplay users, Imposter Ditto, a sweeper or two, and some way to set up hazards. There goes every counter you could possibly have, since now you can't just PP stall by switching.

I am for a ban on Confusion + Prankster. This is the easiest way to eliminate the problem. Swagger and co. have little use outside of these trolling antics, and are fine without the priority

 

[Clone]

I made an account on here years ago, and I follow the threads from time to time. That being said, I haven't actually used this account until now.

This is completely retarded. I run Klefki with Swagger/Twave/Foul Play/Safeguard because Prankster Safeguard shuts down SwagPlay, among other status related strategies.
I don't see any bans for ParaFlinch strategies, which are essentially the same thing.

If your main argument here is that this strategy takes no skill to use, then you should be banning a helluvalot more things that take no strategy to use. For example; Talonflame with Gale Wings and Brave Bird. Aegislash is borderline, he requires some prediction to use, but he can take pretty much any SE hit, SD up, and OHKO back with Shadow Sneak.
SwagPlay requires more skill to use than priority Brave Bird, and Dragonite with a Lum Berry, or in fact, anything that utilizes a Lum Berry set takes a big dump on SwagPlay.
There are pokemon who resist Confusion.
There are pokemon who bounce back Swagger and completely laugh at SwagPlay.
Banning M-Luke? Eh. You could have just banned NP/SD on him and called it a day.
Banning M-Kanga? Fine. Good. That is legitimately broken.
Banning M-Gengar? Same as banning Wobbuffet.

This is why most other communities for competitive battling shun you guys these days. This thread right here. You wonder why people say "Oh, pfft, fucking Smogon."? This is why.

That's just my two cents on the matter.

Id also like to add that banning Blaziken was a bit of a dumb call. It was obvious that the only reason why he could ever be Ubers Material is Speed Boost. Take that away and hes MAYBE low tier OU at best. He seems to be better suited for UU than anything else.

If threads like this are gonna be made, then you need to bring up a shiton more of thing than just this. It isnt common enough to warrant a ban.