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

[Caliber Champ]

Sorry, but you're clueless. "Competitive" encompasses much more than just what's good. Swagger + thunder wave is strong as fuck, that's why this thread exists. That does not make it competitive.

Often times, the most powerful things are very uncompetitive, in a similar vein to "swag play" and things like mega lucario. Mega kangaskhan is powerful, but that does not make it competitive. When something reaches a point to where it is too difficult to counter, it is "broken." This is uncompetitive as it allows one player to completely dominate the game with little input from their side. "Competitive" is not steamrolling your opponent with pure power of your strategy; rather, it is having an even playing field for players to COMPETE on. Swag play prevents interaction between opponents, resulting not in competition, but an unhealthy environment for the game, which makes the gameplay stale and makes people not want to play.

Swagplay stops your opponent from being able to play the game. It always goes first and the only way to counter it is by abusing prankster yourself. Therefore it has no place in the OU metagame, in terms of trying to create the most balanced and most fair kind of metagame.

NO! You have a bad understanding of what competitive really means. An uncompetitive move is something like run away or stall or slow start. Mega kangaskhan was very competitive to the point where everyone was using him to call it uncompetitive just shows your lack of understanding. The word you are looking for is the word cheap. Yes, swagplay is cheap just like gale wings is cheap etc etc.
Swagplay doesn't stop you from playing the game cause you can simply switch into an electric, ground, natural cure pokemon or highly defensive pokemon with low attack power to counter it. There are many unexplored counters too like infiltrator noivern and infiltrator whimsicott and heal bell + wish umbreon. Do you also think blissey, mandibuzz, rotom get beat by swagplay when they are super common?
Nope not at all. People want it banned because they refuse to counter it because of their pride they think its uncompetitive like you do. Many people here on smogon think they are so great that they should never ever lose against confusion and the moment when they almost lose or lose they complain about it because they don't want to adapt to the metagame in that way and they rather ban things to gain more dominance because that is one less strategy that is involved to taking down their cheap strategy.

 

[peng]

I'm sorry, I contributed a good deal pages back. The thread has done nothing but shitpost since. I simply wished to correct a fallacy of believing what is good for one is good for all. Banning all forms of confusion has yet to be shown to be 'good for all' and therefore the burden of proof rests upon you and those wishing to ban all confusion to prove it is such.

Banning most forms of confusion is an inherently good addition to the game. Outside of Hurricane and Dynamic Punch, these moves are exclusively used to induce confusion and rely on 50% chances to execute their given strategy. A competitive game is one in which the better player with the better team wins as close to 100% of the time as possible. Whilst it is clear that there will always be luck associated with the game, whether that be critical hits or the necessity of a miss chance when running a physical Rock STAB, for example, this does not mean it is acceptable to keep playing with further luck elements that we have the potential to remove.

Confusion is an uncompetitive mechanic for a competitive game. Somebody above listed Pokemon that apparently use Confuse Ray "often" and I think they tried to use this as a reason for why we need to keep Confuse Ray around. I don't care about any of this at all. All this shows is that people on the lower end of the ladder use Confuse Ray on random stuff because they don't seem to know what they are doing. This isn't the kind of strategy that is attempting to be targeted by a blanket Confusion ban - its simply a way of saying "well if Swagger is going to get banned, lets stay one step ahead of the SwagPlay curve and just get rid of all similar moves so that we won't be having the same argument in 2 months time with Flatter or Ray-based strategies". All these moves promote a playstyle with luck at its core that is strictly uncompetitive, and unlike stuff like Thunder Wave, they have no purpose other than bringing luck into what ideally should be a luck-free environment.

So its not that the burden of proof hasn't been met. People have been saying all this since the thread went up. Its that we've reached a stalemate where the pro-ban people have said "here's some reasons to get rid of this" and the anti-ban side keep replying with "you haven't shown us why swagger and confusion are bad enough to get rid of, here are some terrible checks that in theory might work but never do".

tl;dr these moves promote strategies that can (but don't always) make skill a non-factor in a battle. Meanwhile, they add nothing beneficial to the game that other, similar luck-associated moves bring (e.g. Thunder Wave has legitimate use outside of fishing for luck).

 

[Draco Meteora]

Ban confusion moves, the main problem is because you have 50% of chance to don't attack and is forced to switch sometimes, It's kinda anti-metagame, you will need luck to attack, paralyze has 25% of chance to don't attack and is very annoying, confusion clause must be created. We have Swagger + Foul Play to annoy a bit more causing massive damage while you can try an attack or keep switching like a crazy but priority Swagger makes you get confused again... The only way I found to stop this was with MegaAbsol magic Bounce/Xatu, In my opinion every confusion move should get banned, 50% of chance to don't attack is too much for this metagame.

 

[Slayer95]

Meanwhile, they add nothing beneficial to the game that other, similar luck-associated moves bring (e.g. Thunder Wave has legitimate use outside of fishing for luck).

And Swagger increases the damage output of Foul Play, therefore deterring the opponent from using mons with sky-high attack stats. Countering the power creep is a very beneficial thing now IMO.

 

[Kairyu_Gen1]

I agree that the slippery slope is an insufficient argument for the anti-ban crew.

(a) I believe that many matches without Swagger can be won by just luck, but do not destabilize the idea that it is a skill-based game. I believe empirically we can assume that a certain degree of luck is considered allowable.

(b) Confusion, paralysis, and Prankster are all game mechanics. I contend that they fall within the acceptable variation of skill centrality as per the reliability in http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/swagplay-evaluating-potential-bans.3500620/page-11#post-5260897 .

(c) Abilities such as Magnet Pull have no avoidance techniques and can cause 100% lose situations against certain steel types. The lack of avoidance techniques is not grounds for a ban.

(d) I believe that my calculations show that SwagPlay falls within acceptable luck dependency ranges by have a higher reliability than Focus Blast or Sleep Powder.

The lack of avoidance thing was just to show how swag play differs from other instances where confusion is part of the discussion.

I argue that swagplay is outside the range of acceptable variation, because if you miss focus blast, you have to take the blame for using a low acc move. If your opponent gets a crit, you cuss the game, but can't really complain because that's just how it is, always has been, and probably always will be. If you hurt yourself in confusion after getting swaggered, who's to blame? Your opponent for forcing you into a 50/50 situation. IMO, that's what makes swagplay different from other luck based things, your opponent is actively raising the stakes to a point where you win or lose based on how lucky you are, and that just doesn't seem healthy

Ban confusion moves, the main problem is because you have 50% of chance to don't attack and is forced to switch sometimes, It's kinda anti-metagame, you will need luck to attack, paralyze has 25% of chance to don't attack and is very annoying, confusion clause must be created. We have Swagger + Foul Play to annoy a bit more causing massive damage while you can try an attack or keep switching like a crazy but priority Swagger makes you get confused again... The only way I found to stop this was with MegaAbsol magic Bounce/Xatu, In my opinion every confusion move should get banned, 50% of chance to don't attack is too much for this metagame.

Confusion moves have never been a problem before because it has to be reset with every new foe, and that leaves the setter open to attacks pretty consistently. When priority got added in, the 50/50 chance became a problem 100% of the time. Other confusion instances are, 1) pretty easy to play around, and 2) not effective enough to realistically threaten the skill centralitiy

 

[Sinning]

That's a consistent perspective. I understand your points.

I concede that SwagPlay can let a less skilled player beat a more skilled one, but I think that's true for many other legitimate strategies because of crits/misses, unlucky status effects, etc, etc. I also concede that you can make a situation where the opponent is not allowed to play -- statistically, it's guaranteed to sometimes make that happen.

Despite that, I think that there are enough competitive merits to SwagPlay to warrant it staying around (in more detail in #1029 on this page). I believe it is consistent enough to use as SwagPlay user and I also believe that the correct counter play strategies are valid and will work consistently enough.

I think we have a bit of difference in opinion on what's good enough to be competitive, so I think we'll agree to disagree.

Much respect. There are many perspectives on what is competitive, and to me, the potency of the tactic is of little relevance. When I say "competitive" I mean in the sense of fairness, gameplay, and design. I don't mean power, or legitimacy as a tactic. The typical set for klefki is incredibly strong, however, to me, things of that nature are not competitive, in that they do not promote interaction; "gameplay" if you will.

I believe a competitive game requires both players to be allowed to play at all times. Granted, when momentum has shifted towards a player, that player is allowed to "play more" than the other player, but it doesn't outright put the second player out of the game. Swagger + Thunder Wave immediately shifts momentum to one player's side with little risk involved for that player. Whether that be paralyzing an opponent's pokemon, or forcing a switch, it's free momentum. I believe that letting players gain this easy momentum is detrimental to a healthy game. Letting such important things as player's turns coming down to the RNG is simply not acceptable. Allowing both players to play the game is a vital part of any competitive game, and if we want pokemon to be as competitive as possible, we should take steps to eliminate as many things as possible that are luck based, while not completely making the game unrecognizable. While Thunder wave + swagger is not luck based in the sense that it is not any easily recreated strategy, it is luck based in the sense that the effectiveness of the strategy is determined by whether the RNG happened to like you on any given turn, and that is far worse than any form of hax.

 

[peng]

And Swagger increases the damage output of Foul Play, therefore deterring the opponent from using mons with sky-high attack stats.

In that case can you give a specific example of an offensive Pokemon that is therefore reliably kept in check by the presence of Swagger and Confusion moves? I don't think there is one.

I don't think anybody is going "yeah I'll run a Swagger / Foul Play / Thunder Wave team because it keeps xyz in check". They're saying "yeah I'll use this strategy because over the course of like 3-5 turns the odds are with me to gain an advantage using these moves and then I have a really good chance to win unless they have this incredibly niche Pokemon that is completely useless in every other scenario".

 

[noobcubed]

Caliber Champ, I think "anti-competitive" is a better word than "cheap". Some people consider Wobbuffet or SmashPass Smeargle cheap, for example, but they take some skill to use and ultimately don't turn matches into glorified lotteries.

Slayer95, Your argument STILL ignores the fact that a sufficiently large discrepancy in skill can make swagplay an attractive option for the underdog, because it gets him more wins than his own skill would, even if that means more losses than wins. This is basically what happened in a recent SPL match from what I understand, which is probably the reason it is being discussed here at all.

SanjiWatsuki, Lies, damned lies and statistics. But seriously:

a) That is true but without swagplay you cannot try to win a game by luck, it just happens from time to time, that is the difference.

b) The mechanics you list may fall within skill centraility individually; that does not mean that the combination of all three does.

c) Except these trapping abilities cannot trap and beat 90% of the Pokemon in the game, they have to select their targets. Swagplay beats almost any Pokemon 1v1 with enough luck.

d) When you use Sleep Powder or Focus Blast you are choosing to take a risk. When your opponent uses swagplay that risk is forced upon you and there is nothing you can do about it. Your logic would equally support the unbanning of OHKO moves as it would swagplay.

 

[lucariomaster2]

Here's my opinion:

It's not Swagger/Confuse Ray/Flatter that's broken. It's confusion moves in conjunction with Prankster that's broken. If someone were running a Swagger/Foul Play/Thunder Wave/Substitute set, but without Prankster, it would be very easy to beat with things like Taunt, faster VoltTurn users, and, as a last resort, revenge killing. But with Prankster, the user of SwagPlay is practically guaranteed to pull of a confusion move. At that point, the battle becomes nothing more than a coin flip.

In my eyes, there's "good hax" and "bad hax". Basically, good hax is a fundamental part of battles, while bad hax is introduced by one of the players. Good hax is things like crits, Ice Beam freezes, and Focus Miss. Since it can happen to both players, it actually adds an element of skill to the battle. For example, let's say I have Lucario out against something locked into Ice Beam. If there wasn't the chance to freeze, I could just set up on it. But because there's that 10% chance to freeze, it means that I have to think harder. Do I have other Pokemon that can cover for Luke if it freezes? Because of that chance of a freeze, I have to play more strategically, as opposed to "use Swords Dance, spam Close Combat". It forces players to analyze risk/reward and, in general, makes battles more interesting. (And yes, I'm totally quoting this Smog article: http://www.smogon.com/smog/issue20/control_luck)

Bad hax, on the other hand, is specifically introduced by players to make the battle more luck-based, and anyone who's played the Battle Tower/Subway/Maison/whatever knows what I'm talking about. It includes things like Quick Claw, BrightPowder, Focus Band, and most importantly, SwagPlay. While random misses and side effects can still turn the tide of a battle, a skilled player can minimize these effects. Prankster + Swagger, however, cannot reliably be played around without using exotic counters that are otherwise unviable in OU. Like I said above, without Prankster, SwagPlay can be beaten reliably, but with Prankster it cannot. This kind of luck is uncompetitive, since it is one of the players that has actually turned the battle into a game of chance, and is using a strategy that takes no skill to use. Intentionally throwing the outcome of the battle into the hands of the RNG, as Smogon has already shown with Evasion Clause and OHKO clause, should not be allowed: High ladder rankings should come from skill and experience, not from luck.

Tl;dr: Ban Swagger, Confuse Ray, and Flatter on Prankster Pokemon.

 

[Slayer95]

The lack of avoidance thing was just to show how swag play differs from other instances where confusion is part of the discussion.

I argue that swagplay is outside the range of acceptable variation, because if you miss focus blast, you have to take the blame for using a low acc move. If your opponent gets a crit, you cuss the game, but can't really complain because that's just how it is, always has been, and probably always will be. If you hurt yourself in confusion after getting swaggered, who's to blame? Your opponent for forcing you into a 50/50 situation. IMO, that's what makes swagplay different from other luck based things, your opponent is actively raising the stakes to a point where you win or lose based on how lucky you are, and that just doesn't seem healthy

There is no such a thing as "self-imposed" chance distinguishable. Chance is just chance no matter how you want to adorn it.

What if told you that Swagger is a move with a main effect of making the opponent unable to attack and take damage per-turn (just like Bad Dreams+Dark Void Darkrai), and with a secondary effect that if the opponent is a physical attacker, it will be able to get rid of that and hit you very hard? It can be argued that the taking additional damage is the "self-imposed" chance backfiring.

 

[Kairyu_Gen1]

There is no such a thing as "self-imposed" chance distinguishable. Chance is just chance no matter how you want to adorn it.

What if told you that Swagger is a move with a main effect of making the opponent unable to attack and take damage per-turn (just like Bad Dreams+Dark Void Darkrai), and with a secondary effect that if the opponent is a physical attacker, it will be able to get rid of that and hit you very hard? It can be argued that the taking additional damage is the "self-imposed" chance backfiring.

What? Of course any time you decide to take a risk it should be allowed (with exceptions such as OHKO moves, but they're not banned for their low accuracy, they're banned for bypassing defenses and such). Swagger isn't what you just called it, its a move that forces you into a 50/50 situation, and those 50s are pretty extreme. You can either hit your opponent for double power (assuming you're a physical attacker), or get hit for significant damage. Going one way or the other every single turn will have huge effects on the match. The "self imposed" aspect is not even worth mentioning because if someone uses swagger on you, it's not self imposed, it's your opponent being a dick and trying to win by luck instead of skill

 

[blazeVA]

>ban Swagger, Confuse Ray etc on Prankster Pokemon

How is this a problem? Actually, let me rephrase that. How is it a problem that's big enough to ban? I don't think it really is. Prankster Pokemon get the boost of having priority to their attacks, that's true, but there are other fast abusers of this strategy. Electrode come to my mind. Now you might say, "HA! Electrode in OU? Who would ever!?" But I could say the same about Liepard. So, I really don't see how Prankster is the problem.

Also, again, if people are complaining about the effects of Confusion NOW, I'm very disappointed. Confusion has been around for six generations, from the 100% accuracy of Confuse Ray to the +2 power of Swagger. So, why are we complaining about it now? Not like it has changed at all. These "50/50" arguments wouldn't have held one, two, three generations ago. So let's take a step back, look at all the issues, and see what actually is the problem.

 

[Caliber Champ]

Simple fix. Allow only 1 or 2 prankster pokemon per team. This is the best solution for all.

 

[Toljik]

Paraflinch falls into the same category of this strategy, and should be removed as well. There should be no way to create a situation where your opponent is allowed any less than a 50/50 chance at their turn. While paraflinch and swag play are easily recreated, and are viable "strategies" but are bad for a competitive environment. I suppose I just have a problem with wins that stem from not outplaying your opponent, but rather create a situation where the opponent is simply not allowed to play, and is at times even punished for finally being allowed to pass the RNG for paralysis.

The problem is that it is not possible to ban paraflinch without causing collateral damage to the metagame.

Serene Grace + Flinch move ban? No physical Jirachi allowed, because both its STAB moves flinch.
Thunder Wave + Flinch move ban? That won't stop one Pokemon from using Thunder Wave/Sticky Web and the other Pokemon going for the flinch. Plus, a few Pokemon like Rotom-S will be unable to use their own STAB moves.
Serene Grace ban? Sure. Let's send Jirachi and Meloetta to Ubers, it's not like anyone cares about UU.
Flinch move ban? Ha ha ha no.

>ban Swagger, Confuse Ray etc on Prankster Pokemon

How is this a problem? Actually, let me rephrase that. How is it a problem that's big enough to ban? I don't think it really is. Prankster Pokemon get the boost of having priority to their attacks, that's true, but there are other fast abusers of this strategy. Electrode come to my mind. Now you might say, "HA! Electrode in OU? Who would ever!?" But I could say the same about Liepard. So, I really don't see how Prankster is the problem.

Also, again, if people are complaining about the effects of Confusion NOW, I'm very disappointed. Confusion has been around for six generations, from the 100% accuracy of Confuse Ray to the +2 power of Swagger. So, why are we complaining about it now? Not like it has changed at all. These "50/50" arguments wouldn't have held one, two, three generations ago. So let's take a step back, look at all the issues, and see what actually is the problem.

Electrode can be outsped by priority or Choice Scarf attackers before it even gets a chance to pull it off. It's not in the same league as Klefki. Of course, that won't stop people from calling for a ban next month anyways.

 

[SanjiWatsuki]

SanjiWatsuki, Lies, damned lies and statistics. But seriously:

a) That is true but without swagplay you cannot try to win a game by luck, it just happens from time to time, that is the difference.

b) The mechanics you list may fall within skill centraility individually; that does not mean that the combination of all three does.

c) Except these trapping abilities cannot trap and beat 90% of the Pokemon in the game, they have to select their targets. Swagplay beats almost any Pokemon 1v1 with enough luck.

d) When you use Sleep Powder or Focus Blast you are choosing to take a risk. When your opponent uses swagplay that risk is forced upon you and there is nothing you can do about it. Your logic would equally support the unbanning of OHKO moves as it would swagplay.

(a) I concede that SwagPlay can in rare cases win games 100% by luck and that some users do attempt to play with this in mind. With really terrible, terrible luck even a Chansey can be defeated by confusion. For me, the fact that these is counter play means that it isn't PURE luck and that the chance of your counter plays going 100% out the window is very low, though. I think there's consistency -- enough to warrant not banning.

(b) This is true, but I've been analyzing from the perspective that Prankster is being used with them. I'm not convinced that the combination of all of them is luck-based enough for a ban, and I haven't seen anyone else produce data to suggest that yet. If someone produces it, though, I'd change my perspective pretty quickly.

(c) I concede the point that SwagPlay can beat any Pokemon 1v1 with enough luck. I don't believe this is enough to warrant a ban by itself. For example, a Quick Claw using flincher could theoretically beat any Pokemon in the game 1v1. We need more than just that to call for a ban.

(d) You're right that the risk is put onto the opponent, which makes it a rather unique status effect. It can be played around, however. Is mitigating risk to minimize the amount of damage SwagPlay not a strategy, though?

Also, I consider OHKO moves to be considerably outside of the acceptable variation. 30% success rate is way too luck-based for me and the stakes are way higher than SwagPlay.

 

[Kairyu_Gen1]

Simple fix. Allow only 1 or 2 prankster pokemon per team. This is the best solution for all.

One prankster is more than enough to turn a match from a contest of strategy and prediction to a contest of "how many times can I get lucky?" I use Klefki to confuse and paralyze an opponent and give free turns to a set up sweeper, and being totally honest, I don't think it's fair. If I get 4 DDs off with my Dragonite, there's not much my opponent can do. It's comparable to things like sleep and encore, but with the added gamble that my opponent can hurt itself AND have a permanent decrease to speed.

And that's not mentioning the times I've swept 3 or 4 enemy pokes with Klefki. Never 6-0'd, but then again, never really tried to either

 

[Sinning]

NO! You have a bad understanding of what competitive really means. An uncompetitive move is something like run away or stall or slow start. Mega kangaskhan was very competitive to the point where everyone was using him to call it uncompetitive just shows your lack of understanding. The word you are looking for is the word cheap. Yes, swagplay is cheap just like gale wings is cheap etc etc.
Swagplay doesn't stop you from playing the game cause you can simply switch into an electric, ground, natural cure pokemon or highly defensive pokemon with low attack power to counter it. There are many unexplored counters too like infiltrator noivern and infiltrator whimsicott and heal bell + wish umbreon. Do you also think blissey, mandibuzz, rotom get beat by swagplay when they are super common?
Nope not at all. People want it banned because they refuse to counter it because of their pride they think its uncompetitive like you do. Many people here on smogon think they are so great that they should never ever lose against confusion and the moment when they almost lose or lose they complain about it because they don't want to adapt to the metagame in that way and they rather ban things to gain more dominance because that is one less strategy that is involved to taking down their cheap strategy.

No, I understand what a competitive game is. You do not understand what I mean, though, so I'll explain. When you say "competitive," what you mean is "powerful." M-khan is powerful. Swag Play is powerful. That is not an argument. You say run away, stall, and slow start are uncompetitive. I disagree. They're just so bad that they shouldn't be used. So in a sense, I guess they're uncompetitive. But "competitive" in the context I'm using it in is less about the moves/abilities/pokemon, and more about the gameplay and design.

Competitive, then, in order for us to be on the same page here, is not necessarily a notation of strength. It only has to do with the subject being balanced and fair, and whether it promotes actual gameplay. Swagplay does, in fact, stop you from playing the game. Simply switching into an electric, ground, natural cure, or highly defensive pokemon, as you suggest, is not a counter, and does not stop their strategy. The strategy of swagplay is simply to take away the opponent's turn, or to use their turn to create more pressure on them through confusion damage. Your suggestions do not actually counter Swagplay - they only mitigate the damage that your opponent is causing you. To truly counter swag play - that is, to make it 100% ineffective, would require a ground type, with the ability Own Tempo, which also has low attack. That is not a reasonable counter, as it would be dead weight in any other situation.

You speak of pride and refusing to counter things. If that's the case, then let's unban everything. Or is that not competitive? By your definition, it is. That is an awful idea, though, as things like minimize and spore spamming would take over the metagame, and saying we should just adapt to that is not going to fly.

A competitive game should only be influenced by the players' actions; not an outside number generator that decides whether a player gets a turn or not. A player should, at any given time, be allowed to play the game until they lose. Free turns should accumulated through smart play, not by having a pokemon with an ability that says "I go first", and moves that stop your opponent from being able to play altogether.

 

[rileydelete]

I would like to clarify something I neglected to talk about in my earlier post: Swagger is different from normal confusion moves. Unlike Confuse Ray, Swagger makes a Pokemon more powerful, and thus the attack boost makes Confusion actually hurt more. This means that if you use Swagger on a Pokemon, say a Conkeldurr, Conkeldurr gets a massive boost in strength. Should confusion activate, it will do much more damage than if this Pokemon had just been hit with Confuse Ray.

This is troubling, and even more troubling when you throw in Prankster. Prankster lets Swagger get priority, and thus, there's not much of a concern when it comes to outspeeding an opponent. Again, I ask that Prankster and Swagger Be Banned because of how different Swagger is from regular confusion, as well as that it turns games into coinflips.

 

[Pipotchi]

>ban Swagger, Confuse Ray etc on Prankster Pokemon

How is this a problem? Actually, let me rephrase that. How is it a problem that's big enough to ban? I don't think it really is. Prankster Pokemon get the boost of having priority to their attacks, that's true, but there are other fast abusers of this strategy. Electrode come to my mind. Now you might say, "HA! Electrode in OU? Who would ever!?" But I could say the same about Liepard. So, I really don't see how Prankster is the problem.

Also, again, if people are complaining about the effects of Confusion NOW, I'm very disappointed. Confusion has been around for six generations, from the 100% accuracy of Confuse Ray to the +2 power of Swagger. So, why are we complaining about it now? Not like it has changed at all. These "50/50" arguments wouldn't have held one, two, three generations ago. So let's take a step back, look at all the issues, and see what actually is the problem.

Why are OHKO moves banned? They have even lower accuracy than confusion's proc chance, but they are broken because they rely on pure chance, and not on stats or typing whatsoever to instantly take out an opponent's pokemon.
Now I'm not for one second saying that confusion is as deadly as ohko moves- you can switch out of confusion to avoid playing the rng- but it sits in the exact same vein as ohko moves. You are relying entirely on luck to win the game, ignoring stats and typing completely for 90% of the metagame (obviously stuff like chansey is an exception, having 5 base attack and taking very little from its own attack stat), moreso than just paralysis or a 70% accuracy move. You can play around confusion, but you can also exploit people trying to play around it with switcheroo sets (something i posted in the lures thread for instance). And after that, we start building the game and meta around luck strategies, which just sounds so dull- although this already is happening.

Also you can't just say that because its been fine in previous generations, its fine now. Swift swim is fine without drizzle, but it got banned last gen because the combination was overpowered. Certain combinations are more powerful than the sum of their parts, and its always going to be like that- this gen, foul play paired with swagger, paired with priority, paired with the best defensive typing in the game makes klefki a very frustrating pokemon. Sure, it wont succeed every time, but neither will a sheer cold cryogonal. That doesnt mean that occasionally both of these strategies are going to succeed, and 1v5 the enemy team- which is perfectly explainable through luck, but neither of these strategies deserve a win whatsoever. People are going to offer really lame robot responses of "yea, it doesnt have a high success rate so its ok" but considering how overused this low-success rate luck strat is, its winning a lot of matches still. I think we should just cut it, it doesnt add anything to the game and ultimately its supposed to be a competitive metagame rather than a complete rng. It doesnt have to be a 50/50 chance of success or failure to be an rng too.
Obviously all pokemon has rng elements but its up to people to try and make it as competitive as possible i think.

I think there are some strats which really slipped under the radar last gen which definitely should have been axed tbh. For instance copycat roar is such a lame riolu strategy which shouldnt have been allowed through just because riolu was NU. Similarly this should have probably been axed last gen too, but it didnt. That doesnt mean it cant get axed this gen tho.

 

[Sinning]

The problem is that it is not possible to ban paraflinch without causing collateral damage to the metagame.

Serene Grace + Flinch move ban? No physical Jirachi allowed, because both its STAB moves flinch.
Thunder Wave + Flinch move ban? That won't stop one Pokemon from using Thunder Wave/Sticky Web and the other Pokemon going for the flinch. Plus, a few Pokemon like Rotom-S will be unable to use their own STAB moves.
Serene Grace ban? Sure. Let's send Jirachi and Meloetta to Ubers, it's not like anyone cares about UU.
Flinch move ban? Ha ha ha no.

In that case, the only options would be to ban things from individual tiers or to not ban anything. There's no need to get ban-happy. Serene Grace, while being able to create situations where the opponent's turn is denied, is not the same as being able to take away the opponent's turn and have +1 priority behind it. Jirachi and Togekiss can be played around and have easily accessible, viable counters. Prankster + Swagger + Thunder Wave is vastly different, and while I'd personally do away with them, entire metagames and many players' opinions must be taken into consideration when these decisions are made.

 

[Scorpiopt]

People are not seeing that this strategy is also used with t-wave witch makes extremely hard to get a chance and break a dam substitute , the problem is wen they use it in conjunction with prankster .
without prankster this strategies wont get out of hand like they do now

 

[noobcubed]

Guys, we are not discussing Serene Grace/Iron Head Jirachi here. Whatever gave you that idea?

 

[Kairyu_Gen1]

Guys, we are not discussing Serene Grace/Iron Head Jirachi here. Whatever gave you that idea?

This happens every time "luck" is discussed. I distinctly remember a decent number of people trying to get the evasion clause removed a few months ago and paraflinch was one of their main points. You can see how well that went. There's a fine line between "haxy" and "uncompetitive," but some people don't seem to get that some things are just on one side of that line while some are on the other. I agree, we are here to discuss which side swag play is on, but I think that's already been pretty well established

 

[blazeVA]

First off, thank you for replying pipotchi. Now...

>OHKO moves versus Confusion
While I do see the comparison, it is noticeable to note that the chance of SwagPlay working for the Sub + Confusion is actually worse than using a OHKO move twice. 45% versus 51%. OHKO moves rarely if ever swept teams, but the ability for a wide variety of Pokemon to immediately turn a game into a 5-6 or such with little effort was too broken. Confusion doesn't do that.

Swift Swim and Drizzle being banned isn't an indication that Swift Swim was broken. It's an indication that the introduction of Drizzle in OU was what made the strategy broken, along with the general defensiveness of the Water type. If Swift Swim was limited to just Armaldo, no one would say that the strategy was broken. There was a reason in Gen III Drizzle was banned, even with Kyogre being dropped to like Level 78. It was Drizzle, NOT Swift Swim that was the problem. Now what do we see? Now that Drizzle has been nerfed, SS + Drizzle isn't banned. But SS wasn't nerfed, now was it? ;) Which bring my point into clarity, its not Swagger that's the problem. It's the other things that have come into play, most noticeably Prankster(which banning the combination of that and Swagger won't help) and Foul Play. If Swagger was really as bad as people say it is, then it would have caused confusion to be knocked out five generations ago, correct? It really seems that people are not looking at the real problem. Let me ask you this, and I do want people to answer, because I really think these questions to need to be asked:

Would the parafusion set, with Swagger, be as powerful if it was not for Foul Play?
Would the parafusion set, with Swagger, be as powerful if Prankster Pokemon didn't have it?
If it is the confusion chance that's the problem, is allowing paralysis the same thing?
Is paralysis better, or worse, than confusion?

 

[Suisho]

Confusion is an uncompetitive mechanic for a competitive game.

A competitive game should only be influenced by the players' actions; not an outside number generator that decides whether a player gets a turn or not.

Many of the people supporting a proposed ban of Swagger (or, more broadly, all status-category moves which induce confusion) keep suggesting that:

1. Elements of chance are uncompetitive.
2. Elements of chance therefore have no place in a competitive game.

I'm going to have to disagree with the second assertion. There are many popular games which are highly competitive but involve varying degrees of elements of chance. Some of the most well-known examples are poker and mahjong. (Not Solitaire Mahjong. Real mahjong.) These games are enjoyed by millions of players all over the world, have professional circuits and organizations, and host regular tournaments which attract the best of the best. Suggesting that chance has no business being in a competitive game is to suggest that mahjong or poker should not even exist. "I should be able to know what you have in your hand. That I have to guess is unfair. It reduces the game to a coin flip." That's essentially what you guys are saying.

There are also many popular games which are highly competitive and have little element of chance. Two well-known examples are chess and Go. These games are likewise enjoyed by millions of players the world over, have professional circuits and organizations, and host regular tournaments which attract the best of the best.

Pokémon, as it exists and was created by Game Freak, is a game that has more in common with poker than it does with chess. There are many elements of chance built into the game.

• Do you attack this turn despite being asleep / paralyzed / confused / attracted / frozen?
• Does your attack hit?
• Does your opponent stay put or switch?
• Do you land a critical hit?
• Do you outspeed your opponent?
• Which ability is your opponent running?
• Which moves is your opponent running?

Heck, before Team Preview was standardized in Gen 5, one of the biggest elements of chance in the entire game was not knowing what creatures your opponent had until they were sent out.

Therefore, it seems to me to be somewhat absurd that the disaffected vocal minority who want to see Pokémon transmogrified into PokéChess should get their way. You may be tempted to tell the rest of us that if we like elements of chance then we should go play some other game instead ... but I feel like it's we who should be telling you that. ^^; If elements of chance are anathema to your enjoyment of competitive play, then perhaps you should seriously look into playing some other game besides Pokémon. It clearly wasn't designed for you, from the ground up. The accusations that elements of chance have no place in competitive play are patently false given the widespread enjoyment of competitive games with elements of chance built into their very foundations. I mean, heck: if the enormous popularity of the Random Battle format doesn't prove to you that many fans like an element of surprise and uncertainty in their Pokémon, then I don't know what does. Yes, this is OU, not RandBats. We makes rules that suit the needs of OU and OU players here. But to suggest that elements of chance have absolutely no business being in OU is simply ludicrous.