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

[Frozen Arrow]

Prankster doesn't need banning, it gives certain pokemon there niche in their ladders. Again I don't think swagger needs banning on its own as it Can backfire on the opponent as it is providing a free sword dance. However the combination of Prankster/Swagger and status is where there is a problem, Luck would really have to be on your favour to get any moves to land. Similarly Swagger with Foul Play is a problem.

 

[Ninja Charizard]

i don't see a difference between this and banking on a "91.5% chance to 2hko" or the "1-3 turns to wake up from non-self induced sleep". there's plenty of luck in the game, and plenty match-deciders due to the luck. i'm sure a pokemon pro-mod would have been developed by now if all that was a serious problem. banning swagplay is just a slippery slope to a totally neutered game. luck is fine (and it makes for interesting matches that never play out exactly the same). you have to learn to ease the element for yourself if you run into problems with it, or just realize that maybe your perfect team could use a rework.

Luck is fine.

Replacing a skill based game for a roulette is not fine.

If you want to play roulette, go to a casino. I want to play a game where skill matters more than luck most of the time, and luck is not a common factor.

If we want to ban anything, I think we have to specifically ban having the ability prankster and the moves thunder wave and swagger all on the same poke. If you can't have all three of these things, it becomes too hard to use the strategy effectively.

This strategy is surprisingly effective even without Thunder Wave, which is the reason many PranksterSwag user can afford to replace Thunder Wave with Spikes, Taunt, Toxic or Recover and is why Sableye is still used despite not being able to Paralyze.

Leave Thunder Wave out of this. It's just an extra move that makes the set more effective, but isn't strictly necessary.

 

[Thorhammer]

Can we stop trying to drag Prankster into this? The problem, if any, is Swagger and its 50% chance to make you hit yourself instead of acting. Prankster is just a popular method for making that 50% chance happen. If Deoxys-S got Swagger it'd be just as bad.

 

[Aquaslash]

If you want to play roulette, go to a casino. I want to play a game where skill matters more than luck most of the time, and luck is not a common factor.

I think you need to hop on some Street Fighter then, you'll be right at home.

Stall laughs at swagplay. Chansey/Blissey/walls with low attack take basically nothing from Foul Play/Confusion hax, and worst case scenario can end up stalling swagplay teams out of pp. I know I've done it.

But a serious question to everyone: how often do people actually see Swagplay teams these days? I've seen fewer and fewer the higher I get up the ladder, and just seriously don't view it as a major threat. I'm surprised that we would go so far as to ban it, and I'm not in favor of it.

I'm admittedly not much of a ladder player, but in my runs, I've only run into them a handful of times. Once in ubers and a a few times in OU. Almost won in Ubers but then HJK miss happened. Meanwhile in OU, they're just setup fodder for my Lilligant.

 

[Wobbyble]

lol haunter i luv u

complex ban this shit thanks

 

[Thorhammer]

lol haunter i luv u

complex ban this shit thanks

Enough with this complex ban crap. We're supposed to have a policy against complex bans, so why do you and so many other people think it's okay to ignore that just to keep Swagger in the game? Is it that valuable of an asset that we need to make even more of a mess out of our rules?

 

[Facepalmboook]

Pokemon wich have own tempo: Slowpoke, Slowbro, Slowking, Lickitung, Lickilicky, Smeargle, Lotad, Lombre, Ludicolo, Numel, Spoink, Gumpig, Spinda, Glameow, Purugly, Petilil, Liligant, Espurr, Bergmite, Avalugg.
Pokemon that can use own Tempo: Lickility, Smeargle, Numel, Spinda, Liligant, Avalugg.
Lickility:
+6 0 Atk Liepard Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Lickilicky: 265-313 (62.5 - 73.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+4 0 Atk Lickilicky Body Slam vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Liepard: 415-489 (125.3 - 147.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Smeargle:
+6 0 Atk Liepard Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Smeargle: 262-309 (83.4 - 98.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
1. Spore. 2. Baton Pass
+6 252 Atk Choice Band Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Klefki: 326-384 (102.5 - 120.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Numel:
+6 8 Atk Liepard Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Numel: 156-184 (48.1 - 56.7%) -- 88.7% chance to 2HKO
It has Yawn...

Spinda:
+6 8 Atk Liepard Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 0+ Def Spinda: 268-316 (82.7 - 97.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
It might pass these boosts too, but...

Liligant:
+6 8 Atk Liepard Foul Play vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Lilligant: 246-291 (87.5 - 103.5%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
Sleep powder, Quier dance.

Avalugg:
+6 8 Atk Liepard Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 4+ Def Avalugg: 306-360 (77.6 - 91.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Without Curse boosts
+6 8 Atk Liepard Foul Play vs. +3 252 HP / 4+ Def Avalugg: 123-145 (31.2 - 36.8%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
With Curse boosts.

Tanglet Feet makes SwagPlay risky.
Pokemon with Tanglet Feet: Pidgeot, Dodrio, Spinda, Chatot.

Pidgeot: Workable Special and Physical stats.
Dodrio: Good Attack, Cant break Steel types.
Spinda:...
Chatot: Boomburst.

Pokemon with bad Attack stats and good bulk stop Swagplay completly
8 Atk Liepard Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 7-10 (0.9 - 1.4%) -- possibly the worst move ever
+6 8 Atk Liepard Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 31-37 (4.4 - 5.2%) -- possibly the worst move ever
8 Atk Liepard Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 18-22 (2.5 - 3%) -- possibly the worst move ever
+6 8 Atk Liepard Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 70-84 (9.8 - 11.7%) -- possibly the worst move ever
8 Atk Liepard Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Shuckle: 6-7 (2.4 - 2.8%) -- possibly the worst move ever (It might have Contray)
-2 8 Atk Liepard Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Shuckle: 3-4 (1.2 - 1.6%) -- possibly the worst move ever

 

[Wobbyble]

Enough with this complex ban crap. We're supposed to have a policy against complex bans, so why do you and so many other people think it's okay to ignore that just to keep Swagger in the game? Is it that valuable of an asset that we need to make even more of a mess out of our rules?

Swagger is not an issue without Prankster. It's as simple as that. You don't have to be rude.

Aquaslash, Facepalmboook. Stop mentioning Own Tempo. Just stop. Nothing with Own Tempo is viable at the top of the OU ladder. You WILL lose if you use shit like Own Tempo Slowbro or Lilligant. If someone can climb up to 1900's using crap Pokemon with a trash ability designated specifically to beat an uncommon gimmicky strategy, then you have my kudos.

 

[migetno1]

I wrote a pretty indepth playtest on the topic which I posted over at RMT. I could almost get suspect reqs by following a formula.

Think about that for a second. I scored in the top 10% of players by following a formula. There's no intuition, no predicting and there sure as hell wasn't any skill involved.

Another thing to consider is the sheer hate it gets. Swagger drives people away from the game. Read the pastebins in that RMT if you don't believe me. Losing to swagger just makes you feel bad. Is this something we want for the game?

 

[cullen_poisson]

While I do agree that the combo of prankster and confusion moves should be banned, there are very easy ways around it. I'm sure every team has a special attacker. If everyone knew to decrease the attack iv's to 0, swagger would cease to be an issue. Yes, you have a 50% chance to hurt yourself, but it would be minimal damage, and you could easily ohko the frail users of the moveset. A direct ban on prankster users would be dumb. For example, thundurus is an amazing pivot that rarely is used for a swagger set.

 

[X5Dragon]

The "lol Stall don't care about it" (which isn't true) is just hypocrisy, how many times did we ban stuff because it solely effected defensive teams while offensive teams managed to shrug said threat?

The fact is this ain't a toin coss, it's a 100% chance that becomes 75% and then 37.5% and then if they sub almost zero. Yes there are fast/prankster taunters, of only which you will be carrying 1 vs. 6 and the best case scenario is that you speed tie with Thundrus, or Magic bouncers (again, how many of these are there/are you gonna use) and don't even get me started on own tempo.

"What next? Ban serene grace? Ban flinch moves?"

 

[noobcubed]

Losing to swagger just makes you feel bad. Is this something we want for the game?

I'd like to add that I also feel bad when I beat these sort of teams, because again, I only did it through luck. (At least when I'm using an offensive team - I agree that stuff like Mandibuzz and Blissey is more-or-less a hard stop to these shenanigans, and so stall teams can generally get by.)

 

[Wobbyble]

I wrote a pretty indepth playtest on the topic which I posted over at RMT. I could almost get suspect reqs by following a formula.

Think about that for a second. I scored in the top 10% of players by following a formula. There's no intuition, no predicting and there sure as hell wasn't any skill involved.

Another thing to consider is the sheer hate it gets. Swagger drives people away from the game. Read the pastebins in that RMT if you don't believe me. Losing to swagger just makes you feel bad. Is this something we want for the game?

Ohhh man. I remember playing against you 3-4 times and winning all 3-4. I blandly insulted you every time.

The thing is, you weren't even utilizing Swagplay to its maximum potential. Proper use of Swagplay is much scarier, which includes utilizing some hazards, Scarfed Ditto, some stuff that actually gets past Chansey/Blissey, etc. However this being said, don't bring "top 10%" into the equation of your argument, it's not a valid argument for obvious reasons.

rac585, Smogon is not going to change in game mechanics, so that will not happen.

 

[Darvey Hent]

I don't understand why this thread has just been overloaded with people constantly bringing up counters and checks for SwagPlay. My interpretation of the suggested ban is to determine whether or not SwagPlay's abuse of luck in this game is warranted.

I, for one, have been both a user and victim of SwagPlay+Prankster sets (I used the hell out of SwagPlay/T-Wave/Sub+Prankster Liepard in Gen 5 NU), and overall I'd say that it exploits the fact that you can succeed in this meta game without any level of skill whatsoever. Sure, there are counters, and there's also the distinct possibility that the SwagPlay set doesn't work at all, but I think that it's an unfair style of playing the game.

Having said that, pokemon with the Prankster ability have uses outside of SwagPlay. Klefki, for one, is arguably the best dual screener in the tier, as well as having access to spikes. I've seen efficient nasty plot Liepard sets that take opponents by surprise as well. Point is, prankster pokemon can succeed in the metagame without access to swagger.

In terms of inflicting confusion on the target, using swagger solely for this purpose seems like a double edged sword with the increase in attack, whereas a plain old confuse ray would achieve the goal without a drawback. I personally have never seen swagger used without a follow up foul play, and when I do get hit by swagger, it's always been from a pokemon with prankster ability. As such, I personally think that Swagger (or any confusion-inducing move) should be banned in conjunction with Prankster.

 

[X5Dragon]

if you're going to remove luck based events, please remove criticals too thanks.

There is a difference between luck factor and between the only way you can win against these teams most of the time is to:

 

[Subject 18]

annoying your opponent is absolutely a legitimate strategy in the context of pokemon and many other e-sports/real life sports

but ok, if you want it banned at least be consistent and ban confuse ray, serene grace paraflinch, etccccc

Serence Grace Paraflinch can be played around and countered relatively easily. Most of the Serene Grace fairly slow with the exceptions of: Skymin (banned), Jirachi, and Meloetta. Even with those Pokemon included you can send in a faster pokemon or a scarf user to take them out, whereas with prankster you can send out Deoxys-Speed to take them out but you'll just get hit a Swagger or T-Wave regardless of your speed. Unless you send out a faster Prankster user with Taunt, you aren't going to beat it 100%. I don't really see how you can compare the two and say it should be banned as well.

 

[Outrageous Fortune]

Too many people are looking at this and thinking "Why should it be banned? It's not even OP!" without realising that this isn't actually the problem at hand. The issue here is that it's completely up to luck, not player skill which is the entire point of playing competitively. The only thing that separates a pokemon sweeping your team at +2 from that same pokemon KOing itself is the rng, and in most cases there's nothing you can do but hope luck favours you.
And to those mentioning move accuracy, crits and secondary effect chances, keep in mind that top players exist despite these things - the game clearly requires skill, as any competitive game should. Sure, a less skilled battler can win against a better player because of ridiculous luck, but that is a far cry from making the entire match a coinflip every game.

I say a prankster + swagger complex ban is the way to go.

 

[Aquaslash]

Swagger is not an issue without Prankster. It's as simple as that. You don't have to be rude.

Aquaslash, Facepalmboook. Stop mentioning Own Tempo. Just stop. Nothing with Own Tempo is viable at the top of the OU ladder. You WILL lose if you use shit like Own Tempo Slowbro or Lilligant. If someone can climb up to 1900's using crap Pokemon with a trash ability designated specifically to beat an uncommon gimmicky strategy, then you have my kudos.

No sir/ma'am, I will not. I won't stand for a game where everyone uses the exact same group of pokes cause that trash is just boring. Own Tempo is just one of a myriad of ways to beat this strategy. As far as I know, all of the users of swag play bar klefki are incredibly frail, and furthermore, they tend to use swagger as opposed to flatter, leaving them open to special attacking sweepers with low attack stats.

 

[Verminator]

No sir/ma'am, I will not. I won't stand for a game where everyone uses the exact same group of pokes cause that trash is just boring. Own Tempo is just one of a myriad of ways to beat this strategy. As far as I know, all of the users of swag play bar klefki are incredibly frail, and furthermore, they tend to use swagger as opposed to flatter, leaving them open to special attacking sweepers with low attack stats.

The only Own Tempo user who is remotely viable is Liligant. Liligant is crippled by Thunder Wave.

 

[Dread Arceus]

No sir/ma'am, I will not. I won't stand for a game where everyone uses the exact same group of pokes cause that trash is just boring. Own Tempo is just one of a myriad of ways to beat this strategy. As far as I know, all of the users of swag play bar klefki are incredibly frail, and furthermore, they tend to use swagger as opposed to flatter, leaving them open to special attacking sweepers with low attack stats.

And I won't stand for a game where everybody uses the exact same mons because Parafusion is too ungodly annoying, so they all have to run Espeon or Thundurus-I. You actually expand the amount of viable things by doing bans, rather than shrink it.

 

[Wobbyble]

No sir/ma'am, I will not. I won't stand for a game where everyone uses the exact same group of pokes cause that trash is just boring. Own Tempo is just one of a myriad of ways to beat this strategy. As far as I know, all of the users of swag play bar klefki are incredibly frail, and furthermore, they tend to use swagger as opposed to flatter, leaving them open to special attacking sweepers with low attack stats.

You understand Smash talk, yeah? What you just said essentially was "I'm tired of everyone using Fox, Falco, Jiggs, Marth, Shiek, Peach, and Cptn Falcon. I'm going to main Pichu." While you can do it and no one is going to stop you, there's no way you'll make it far competitively.

There's a huge difference between being creative and using un-viable things. You can be creative by using LO Clefable or Banded Ferrothorn. Using things like Lilligant or Altaria in OU is like modern art. Unique, yet completely pointless.

And yet, back on topic, Lilligant won't counter Swagplay at all. You can still get paralyzed, your attack can still be boosted by Swagger, and you can still be hit hard by Foul Play even with negative attack IVs and natures. IMO a mod needs to add a post saying Own Tempo shouldn't be discussed, it was already shut down in the first few pages of this thread.
It's basically like bringing up Shedninja in a hypothetical Thundurus I suspect discussion. Pointless, noncontributing, and wrong.

 

[Rotosect]

Enough with this complex ban crap. We're supposed to have a policy against complex bans, so why do you and so many other people think it's okay to ignore that just to keep Swagger in the game? Is it that valuable of an asset that we need to make even more of a mess out of our rules?

Disregarding the infamous Swift Swim+Drizzle ban in BW, complex bans have always been a thing and there was never any policy against it.
In generation 2 where Hidden Power legendaries were banned for a while, Baton Pass+Ingrain was banned in gen 3 and SmashPass is currently banned in BW NU and RU.
I'm pretty sure there are a few more examples.

 

[Haru Piro]

Disregarding the infamous Swift Swim+Drizzle ban in BW, complex bans have always been a thing and there was never any policy against it.
In generation 2 where Hidden Power legendaries were banned for a while, Baton Pass+Ingrain was banned in gen 3 and SmashPass is currently banned in BW NU and RU.
I'm pretty sure there are a few more examples.

Recycle+Leppa Berry, and variants.

Thundurus? Klefki? A ground or electric type sounds good to me.

The rest? Purrloin, and Murkrow? Gimme a break. That stuff is in NU and rotting for a reason.

Forgive me for be so broad and pompous, and I do agree that there needs to be a counter measure for this style of play as it is abusive of game mechanics, and requires little to no effort on the part of the player.

When does this abuse begin? When prankster allows confusion to strike first. At that point that variance rears its ugly head, and suddenly the game is a toin coss.

Confusion isn't the problem, prankster isn't the problem. Priority confusion is, because it brings back that variance the mods here try to so hard to carve out.

Ban prankster being used in conjunction with a confusion inducing move. It's complex, but its better than banning abilities and a game mechanic.

I sweep Ubers teams using Purloin and Murkrow.

 

[doughboy]

Disregarding the infamous Swift Swim+Drizzle ban in BW, complex bans have always been a thing and there was never any policy against it.
In generation 2 where Hidden Power legendaries were banned for a while, Baton Pass+Ingrain was banned in gen 3 and SmashPass is currently banned in BW NU and RU.
I'm pretty sure there are a few more examples.

I would just like to add there was also a sleeping move + perish song + trapping move ban in gsc (eg. Misdreavus and lapras)

What were those smogonites thinking back in 2002. I knew with that first complex ban, it would only get worst. And look at we a lee now 12 years latter, thinking about banning prankster + swagger /s

 

[asbdsp]

Most people don't think it's actually a huge danger, but the fact that there's an actual chance people can win using only luck sickens me.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/predictions-skill-and-deceit-battle-of-smogons-finest.3483873/

This is never going away, and actually is an important part of competitive battling at the highest level. Even going back to something like paraflinch Jirachi, why was it so popular even all the way up to tournament level players, compared to other scarfers/support mons? Its precisely because it give the RNG a chance to win you a battle you have no "right" to win by countering some things it "shouldn't" counter.

I know people are complaining about slippery slope argument as a fallacy here, but in this case the slope is real. There are a huge diversity of strategies dependent on luck to varying degrees. And its not only bad players that use them for the reason I've already mentioned.